Spirits of the Earth and Air
by DarklingAndy
Summary: Hijack, modern AU with faeries. Hiccup lives a quiet life in a small town with his father, but he has one tiny secret: he has The Sight, the ability to see fey folk that no one else can see. He keeps this secret for seventeen years, until an impish ice fey breaks his focus, steals his hoodie, and extracts a promise with life-changing consequences.
1. But Unfortunately, Faeries

The house was silent but for the soft whoosh of the fans. Shadows pooled in the rooms, and the only illumination was a lonely flashlight in Hiccup's room. Hiccup sat up in bed, using the pale beam to sketch on a notepad balanced across his knees. A black cat lay curled up against Hiccup's hipbone, only his ears poking out above the blankets. Toothless didn't move as Hiccup tapped his paper, malcontented, turning it back and forth. Only the gentle rise and fall of the blankets showed the cat was asleep and not dead. Hiccup scrubbed one hand across his eyes, which were ringed in dark circles. He frowned, frustrated with himself. The silence was absolute.

"What are ye doin' still up?!"

Just like that, the peace and quiet shattered.

Hiccup let out a startled screech like a pterodactyl and jumped. Loose sketchbook pages flew in all directions, and Hiccup scrambled after them in a flurry of long limbs, shoving what he could reach out of sight under the blankets. There was a faint screech, a thud, and a glimpse of a tail disappearing beneath the bed. "Dad!" Hiccup stuttered. "Ho-how long have you been standing there?"

Stoick's expression was somewhere between concerned and amused. "Not long."

"I was just, um…" Hiccup's eyes flicked around the room, looking for an excuse or an escape. "…Just, um…"

"Jus'…what?"

"Homework?"

Stoick's eyebrows shot up. "Homework?" A chuckle rumbled deep through his chest. "But tomorrow is Saturday." He bent to pick up one of the pages and turned it over.

Hiccup, seeing what he was doing, made a grab for it but missed. "No, don't—"

Too late. The smile on Stoick's face disappeared, and a horrified scowl took its place. Hiccup froze, heart pounding, guilt written all over his face. Stoick looked up at him; his face spasmed as he tried not show how distraught he was. "What's this?" he rumbled.

Hiccup rushed to explain. "Just a sketch! It's not important." He waved a hand, trying to seem casual about it.

Stoick wasn't reassured; his mustache twitched as he licked his lips, searching for words. "Ye sure it's jus' a sketch?"

"Yes!"

"Ye haven't started to see…" Stoick's voice faltered; he coughed. "…again?"

"No!"

"No, ah…" Stoick finally reached for the word they'd both been avoiding. "…hallucinations?"

A high-pitched, nervous laugh escaped Hiccup. "Haha, no, definitely not! I'm as safe and sane as ever." A pang of hurt went through his chest, but he gave his dad a big, fake smile and a thumbs-up.

Stoick grimaced, but let it go with a nod. "Good."

A few papers still littered the floor; Hiccup gathered them up before Stoick could look at them and realize they were all the same. "These are just doodles, dad, like when I'm bored."

They both started talking at the same time.

"Oh of course-"

"You know I would tell you-"

"I know you'd let me know-"

"-if I started to, you know… again."

"-if you were having trouble with…that…again."

They fell silent. Hiccup tucked the papers against his body, keeping the blank sides toward Stoick. Every single paper held sketches of the same figure, over and over again, at different angles, with different expressions, in different poses, a figure with feathery hair and bright eyes. "…so…yeah." said Hiccup, his voice faint. He couldn't figure out what to say now. He wanted so badly to be able to tell the truth. Impossible. There was no truth that a boy with The Seeing Eye could tell, and have believed, about what he saw.

Stoick broke the moment by clearing his throat and handing back the last paper. "So. I just came up to say good night, and-"

"Right, good night," said Hiccup too quickly.

"-and, you, go to bed soon."

Hiccup nodded fervently. "Yeah, I will."

"Okay. Night, son."

"Night, dad."

The door shut with a soft click, and Hiccup listened to the sound of his father's heavy footsteps fade away. There was the creak and groan of mattress springs down the hall, and Hiccup breathed a sigh of relief, rubbing at his temples. "Why," he said to himself. "Why does that keep happening?" Tufts of hair flopped into his eyes; he pushed them aside wearily. The exhaustion was clear on his face. He tucked the papers back into his sketchbook, then knelt and pushed the blankets aside to peer underneath his bed. "It's alright, Toothless. You can come out now. He left."

Two glimmering yellow spots appeared in the shadows - a pair of suspicious cat eyes gazing out.

"Come oooooonnnnn," Hiccup coaxed.

The cat unfurled himself and slunk out, mewing his judgement of the whole situation. Hiccup picked him up and let him claw his way onto his shoulder, where he sat neatly bunched up. He was big for Hiccup's skinny shoulder, but forced himself to fit, swaying every time Hiccup moved to keep from falling off.

Hiccup turned off all the lights. In the darkness, the warm glow of the street lamp outside filtered through the gaps in his window curtain, lighting up neat bars of pale orange on the carpet. Hiccup moved toward the window and twitched the curtain aside to peer through. Outdoors, everything looked calm, peaceful, bathed in deep blues and purples, but for the bright pools of the street lights. It was quiet.

Twitchy with anxiety, Hiccup studied the scene, his gaze probing the shadows and alleyways. Toothless, sensing his agitation, butted his head against Hiccup's cheek. "S'alright, bud," murmured Hiccup, absently petting him.

Several small pixies fluttered past, but Hiccup forced himself not to notice them. It was never a good idea to let the fair folk know you could see them. They disappeared in a gap between houses, leaving behind a trail of shine before that, too, vanished. For a long moment, the outside world was suspended in the moonlight, unmoving. Nothing - no one - appeared, no one watching him, no lonely figure. Hiccup relaxed, releasing the tension in his shoulders. Then he noticed a glimmer of light out of the corner of one eye. His breathing hitched. He jerked away from the window, but forced himself back. He needed to see.

The figure appeared, swooping over the rooftops, drifting along in the wind. He was alone, a luminous streak against the bleak night sky, tumbling and turning like an acrobat with each gust. The air carried him with a sort of fluid grace. He sailed along until he alighted on the top of a telephone pole across the street, perched there with bare feet, toes curled over the edges.

Hiccup stared. He held his breath, afraid to stir the stillness. The boy on the telephone pole was so close that Hiccup could see the way the moonlight glossed over the bright strands of his hair. So close, Hiccup felt that if he moved, the boy would hear him. His muscles cramped with the effort of staying motionless, but he was fixated. Setting dust motes swirling, he breathed out through his mouth in a soft, slow _haaaaaa__aaaaa__aa_, and edged forward, drawn closer until his breath fogged the glass.

The boy's silver head twisted toward him. The street lamps' light fell across his face, illuminating his glittering eyes, which fixed right on Hiccup's window, maybe right on Hiccup himself.

Hiccup gasped and snatched his hand away from the curtain. It fluttered down between them once more. He lurched backward, tripped over his own feet, and landed on his butt, eyes still fixed on the window. Toothless landed on the carpet on all fours with an alarmed "mow!"

"He _saw_," Hiccup panted, voice swallowed up in the silence. "He almost saw!" He was shaking. He lay there, frozen, not daring to move, breathing hard after holding his breath for so long. The fey boy might have seen him, might know what he was. His heart was racing, chills were running up and down his spine, and his limbs felt weak. He stayed like that for a long time, until Toothless finally mewled with impatience. Dazed, Hiccup shook his head. He crept forward to peer through the crack in the curtain once more, but the figure had gone. The telephone pole, the street, the sidewalks, the shadows and alleyways were all empty now, no pestiferous fair folk lingering to taunt him.

"He's gone…" Hiccup looked at Toothless, who sneezed at him. With a deep sigh, Hiccup retreated into bed and curled up under the covers, letting Toothless crawl in with him. Toothless bounded onto the bed and took his customary spot, curled up against Hiccup's side. Within a few minutes, Hiccup was deeply asleep, and even Toothless didn't hear the faint sound of feet tapping on the roof overhead.

* * *

He spent a night of fitful dreams - a dark shadow stalked him, flickering at the corners of his vision, hissing and whispering, but he could never turn around fast enough to face it. By the time he woke up, he felt more tired than he had been before he slept.

His phone was buzzing on his bedside table. He rolled over, fumbling for it, and discovered two missed calls and three texts from Astrid.

_-goooood moooorning sunshine, the earth says hello!_

_-k i'm coming to get you for work. gonna be there soon._

_-i'm here. where are u, u fucker. _

She had sent the last one ten minutes ago. Hiccup squinted at it, rubbing his eyes at the screen brightness and the sunshine pouring through his window, aware only of the warm nest of his blankets and the early-morning silence. Then out in the driveway, Astrid honked her car horn. A car door opened and closed, and there were footsteps coming toward the house.

With an unpleasant jolt, he was wide awake.

"Oh no," he said ominously. He toppled out of bed, getting a foot stuck in his blankets, and stumbled around his room, pulling on clothing and shoving things into his bag. Toothless watched him in concern from the bed, twitching his ears as he settled into Hiccup's empty warm spot.

There was a tap on his door. "Hiccup," Stoick's voice called through it. "Are ye awake?"

"Yes!" He flung open the door, still trying to get one arm through the sleeve of his hoodie. "I'm coming." He fled past before Stoick could do anything beside look surprised, and tripped his way down the stairs.

Astrid was waiting for him at the front door. She greeted him with a very annoyed "Hiccup, what have you been doing?!"

"I know, I know, I'm sorry, I was asleep. Bye, dad!" He yelled the last part over his shoulder as he shooed Astrid out the door.

The coffee Astrid had brought him was still warm in the cup holder. He slumped into the passenger and cradled it between his palms as she started the car, and they pulled out of the driveway. The cup was comfortingly warm and solid. Hiccup rested his head against the passenger window as they drove into town, watching the scenery fly past. Astrid didn't say much for several minutes. Hiccup had the feeling that she was gearing up to spring something on him, but for the moment, he was content to zone out with his head pillowed against the cool glass.

"Your dad spoke to me this morning."

"Oh no." Hiccup tapped his forehead on the window and didn't look at her.

"Yep. He wants me to talk to you."

That was what Hiccup expected. He let out an exhausted sigh. "Why doesn't he just talk to me himself?"

"Uh…" Astrid's voice held all the notes of I-can't-believe-you-Hiccup. "Because you lie to him?"

Hiccup flinched at his memory of the night before. "Okay, granted, but can't he just…accept my decision to lie to him?" He sent a pleading look toward Astrid, who glanced away from the road for a second to give him a skeptical look back. "Okay, I guess not," he amended, deflating. "What did he say to you?"

Her eyebrows knit together. "He wants me to find out what's bothering you."

"Nothing!" Hiccup responded too quickly. He paused and let out a nervous chuckle. "N-Nothing is bothering me. Why does he think that something is?"

Astrid just gave him a look like she was embarrassed by how poor a liar he was. "Come on, Hiccup."

Hiccup tugged at his hair, anxious and feeling a thousand years old. The words he wanted to spill out closed up his throat until he couldn't speak. He turned to look out the window once more. They pulled into the library parking lot, passing three fair folk that were sitting on the curb. They were tossing pebbles at the cars that drove by. One pebble pinged off their tire. Hiccup's eyes slid straight past them with practiced ease, the same way they always did.

Generally speaking, faeries were a bit wild; they mostly spooked away from humans and lived on their own. Some of them picked on people, doing things like repeatedly blowing leaves in their face and laughing when the human couldn't figure it out, but more often than not, they simply weren't interested. Very few of the fair folk even came into town. The ones who did, usually were just passing through. Hiccup got used to ignoring them.

Astrid parked the car, shut if off, and turned toward him. "You've told me several times that you've been having trouble sleeping for a few weeks, and you've been really jumpy lately, too." She tilted her head at him, eyes narrowing. "I'm not stupid."

He hunched his shoulders up. "Did I say that? That I'm not sleeping?"

"Uuuuugh!" She growled in frustration at him and whacked the steering wheel. "Have you seen yourself? The circles under your eyes are so dark, you look dead!"

He had seen the circles - he'd caught a glance of them in the rearview mirror as he was leaning his forehead against the window. Absently, he touched one with the pad of his fingers. "Yeah, alright. I have to go in to work though." He started to open the door. "I'll let you in the back, and we can talk inside."

"Fine."

"Okay, meet you there then." Pinning his name badge onto his shirt, Hiccup headed into the library.

The library was something of a sanctuary for him. The fair folk that lived in the library were peaceful folk that kept to themselves and didn't bother humans. They preferred to lurk on top of the bookshelves or tuck themselves away in nook and crannies, content to flip through the pages of old paperbacks. Some of the smaller ones stayed hidden between the books themselves. There was something about the old, iron-sparse building - with its dust and brick walls and rickety wooden chairs - that seemed sacred to the fair folk. Or perhaps they respected the infinite stores housed within. Either way, Hiccup could breathe in peace when he was here.

He greeted the cranky librarian at the front desk. She grunted her hello without looking at him and pointed to the cart of unsorted books that people had dropped off. Hiccup dragged it to the back of the stacks so he could sneak Astrid in. She was waiting at the back door, impatient with one arm folded under the other. He opened it and she slipped in, carrying her coffee with her.

"Please tell me you won't spill that."

She made sure the door clicked softly behind her. "Of course I'm not going to spill it. When do I ever do that?"

"Uuuuh…" Hiccup resisted the urge to drag his hands down his face. "Just be careful." She dropped onto one of the little step stools while Hiccup began to go through the pile of books, relaxing into the familiar task of organizing.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Hiccup saw a willow-the-wisp slip out from behind a large tome and float away, but he kept his gaze on the volumes clutched in his hands. They smelt faintly musty. Woody. Like dust and the worn paper they were made of.

"So…" Hiccup almost jumped when Astrid cleared her throat behind him. "You were gonna talk?"

He couldn't say that he was stalling because he didn't know how to talk about it, didn't have the right words. "Yeah, I guess so." He put one book down without checking the title and picked up another, hardly aware of what he was doing. "Where should I start?" he wondered out loud.

"Where do you need to start?"

The vents came on with a soft shushing sound; Hiccup felt the cool air on his neck and chills raced up and down his spine. With a sigh, Hiccup rubbed at his arms. Maybe he could tell Astrid a part of the truth. He peered through the shelves on both sides to make sure the adjacent aisles were empty, glanced through the loose hardcovers for any lingering fey, and checked the rafters. "Someone's been following me," he confessed.

"What!" Astrid jerked. Her coffee almost toppled over but she caught it before any could spill out.

Hiccup flailed his hands at her. "Careful!" He waited for her to relax again and dumped his books back on the book cart in a haphazard stack. Instead he folded himself down onto the floor, sitting across from her, cross-legged. He arranged himself behind the cart so he would be hidden from any passers-by. "Not someone real," he muttered. "It's just a…hallucination."

She scooted closer and leaned in. "Tell me."

"There's a boy. He's been following me, on and off."

"Is he like the other things you see? A fairy?"

Hiccup's stomach lurched, but he knew that Astrid thought it was all just visions. "Yeah, he is." He picked at invisible threads on his jeans, not meeting her eyes.

Astrid took a deep, steadying breath. "What's he like?" she asked in hushed tones, and Hiccup could hear the effort she made to sound normal, not to sound excited. It made him uncomfortable, somehow, that her fascination mirrored his own, but for now, he was relieved. Voicing his anxiety felt like cleaning out a wound.

"Annoying," he scoffed. "He follows me almost everywhere. Into buildings. Into school, in the grocery store…"

"The library?"

Hiccup hesitated. "Yeah, when he's around. But he's not around right now."

"Into your house?"

"Thankfully, no, but he sits outside it and watches."

"Oh, that is creepy," said Astrid, and she shuddered.

"Yeah!" Hiccup agreed. "Ya think? And he was at my house last night. He was sitting on top of the electrical pole across the street."

"Well, at you're not seeing him all the time, right?"

"No," said Hiccup, "Not…exactly. Sometimes he-" Out of the corner of his eye he caught a flash of movement and froze, leaving off in the middle of his sentence. His heart pounded in his throat. Astrid gave him a quizzical look, but he shook his head at her, willing her not to ask. "So how's your english project coming along?" he changed the subject.

"Oh." Astrid still looked confused but she went along with the subject change, for which Hiccup was grateful. "Well, Fishlegs has all the sources, so-"

"ASTRID HOFFERSON!"

The librarian was standing at the end of the aisle, glaring at Astrid. Both Astrid and Hiccup jumped and whipped around to stare at her, and Astrid's cup of coffee went crashing to the floor. The lid popped off, and coffee splattered everywhere. Three pairs of eyes stared at the mess in horror as the froth soaked into the carpet. Hiccup heard someone begin snickering up on top of the bookcases, and his heart leapt into his throat, pounding so hard it was difficult to swallow. He knew that snicker. It had been following him for weeks.

"Oh god." Astrid's was flabbergasted, her mouth hanging open. She looked back and forth between her catastrophe on the floor and The Librarian of Certain Doom. "Oh no. I'm sor-"

"GET OUT OF MY LIBRARY." The librarian erupted. She seized the nearest object, which was a thick tome bearing the words ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITTANICA A-C on the cover, and began advancing on Astrid.

Astrid didn't waste any time. Abandoning her spilled coffee, she raced for the exit. The librarian darted after her. "I'll text you later!" Astrid called over her shoulder as she disappeared, pursued by the librarian, who was screeching "This. Is. The. Last. Time!"

"Bye," sighed Hiccup as an afterthought, even though she was already gone. His skin was prickling. He could hear the fey boy somewhere behind him, his laughter drifting through the air.

He grabbed a stack of paper towels out of the bathroom, and when he came back, the faery was crouched on Astrid's abandoned step stool. He spotted Hiccup and rose from his perch, his limbs stretching out as he hovered in midair.

"That was great," the faery cackled. His face split into a wide grin. "I thought that librarian's eyeballs were going to pop out."

Hiccup was so well-practiced at ignoring faeries that he only hesitated a moment before he knelt to sop up the coffee from the industrial carpeting. In an adjacent aisle, a patron slid books back onto the shelves with a thunk. They walked away, their footsteps receding into silence, and then Hiccup was alone, just him and a faery boy with bright eyes and a dangerous sense of humor in the library.

The faery leaned against the bookcase with a bored roll of his head. "Human are so uptight about the strangest things. She didn't even spill any on the books." Frost spread across the shelf, crackling as it froze the wood. "She wouldn't even have spilled it in the first place if that woman hadn't pounced on her like that."

Hiccup straightened up, shoving wet towels into the empty paper cup and setting it on the cart. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He glanced over his shoulder to check for anyone watching and pulled it out with a small smile. Of course it was from Astrid.

_-i got away, haha! later gator! also, sorry that happened for the 8432th time._

The faery leaned over his shoulder, trying to read his screen, and Hiccup repressed a twitch. He shoved his phone back into his pocket before the librarian could come back and catch him texting when he was supposed to be working and began to shelve the books again, willing his hands not to shake.

The faery drifted around him while he worked, flicking things with his fingers, spreading frost over the shelves and cart. Hiccup stubbornly refused to flinch each time he did it. He just worked around the frost, like he knew a normal person would. It made it hard to focus. Several times he put books back in the wrong place, but he just left them there, unwilling to let on that he could see the faery by appearing distracted.

"You lead a very boring life," the faery said suddenly. "You're always hanging about by yourself. Why do you do that?" When Hiccup didn't answer, the fey boy wrinkled his nose thoughtfully and draped himself across the top of the cart. Several books tumbled off. They fell to the floor with a loud thud, and the faery waited to see what Hiccup would do, watching him with glittering eyes.

Hiccup retrieved the books and turned them over in his hands, pretending to be confused, then set them back on the cart with a shrug. As he turned away, the charade was worth it for a moment to catch a glimpse of the fey's disgruntled face. Hiccup had to suppress a snort.

He tried to go on with his shelving, but he had barely managed to tuck two more hardbacks into their spaces before the faery threw several more books onto the carpet. Hiccup turned around, more slowly this time, tamping down his impatience. He picked them up.

"Ha!" The faery, with a delighted bark of laughter, knocked them right back off. Hiccup snatched them up again, grinding his teeth now. The faery leapt into the air out of Hiccup's way as Hiccup slammed them onto the cart, and before Hiccup could even turn around, there were several more thuds behind him as the faery started pulling books from the shelves.

Hiccup thought he was being very patient. He turned around to fetch the books, feigning mild confusion despite the lump of anxiety in his throat, and the faery twitched two more books off the shelf. Hiccup picked one up and tucked it under his arm. He caught the second one in midair with a sharp glance upward, wishing he could tell the faery exactly where he could shove all these books.

"Nice catch," the faery commented, and Hiccup had to hide a pleased smirk in spite of himself. He set the books aside and looked around as if waiting for more to fall.

The faery, however, seemed to be finished. He drifted around and came to rest on Astrid's step stool. A morose atmosphere settled around him. Hiccup tried to ignore him as he went back to his work, but he felt the faery sigh heavily in a gust of frigid air.

"Uuuurgh," groaned the faery. "It's lonely, you know," he said quietly. "This job. Yours is, too, unless you like the company of books." The fey snorted quietly to himself. "I think you'd understand that. But…then again, you've got Astrid, and you can't even see me."

Hiccup paused, forgetting all about trying to find the right spot for Wild Birds of North America. He had never in his life wanted to break his own rule so badly. There were goosebumps on the back of his neck, crawling and creeping down his spine, that he nothing to do with the cold air radiating from the faerie, and everything to do with how up close the faery was getting. Something about the faery boy's behavior was changed; he was getting too close, he was speaking at Hiccup, and he was tampering with human things. Hiccup itched to get away from him. His behavior didn't fit with any other fey's, and Hiccup didn't know what to make of him.

"I'm stuck in between," said the faery miserably. Hiccup dared a glance over his shoulder and saw that the boy was gazing up at the bookshelves with a ferocious scowl on his face. "I need help. And all you pay attention to is — is — your papers—" He leapt to his feet, stamping angrily. A crack of ice swept over the floor. "And your BOOKS!" He knocked several books onto the floor.

"Are you serious right now?" Hiccup muttered, bending to pick the books up again. He had never seen the faery boy like this. He was angry, frustrated, almost frantic about something. He leapt from shelf to shelf, knocking books off in a slew, so that Hiccup couldn't keep up to gather them. He dodged a tome about poison plant life that almost indented his skull, and felt his sympathy morph into sharp irritation.

"Okay," he said. "Okay, okay, that's — ow—" A book hit him on the shoulder, and something inside him snapped. "That's enough! Will you please leave the books alone? I'm gonna have to reshelve all these! No, stop-" Furious, Hiccup seized the faery's arm as he flitted past and spun him around to face him. He wrapped both hands around his shoulders and stared him down. "Cut that out!"

The faery boy froze with a sharp intake of breath. His eyes widened; his lips parted in shock. "Are you — talking to me?" he whispered.

"Yeah," muttered Hiccup in a tone of complete obviousness. "Yeah, yes, I can…see you…and whatever."

"And…and you can hear…me?"

"Did I not just-" Hiccup gave up trying to be reasonable halfway through his sentence. He quieted his tone, remembering where they were. "Just…stop throwing things at me, alright?"

The boy barely even seemed to hear him — he was euphoric in a world of his own, in a way that left him blind and deaf to anything outside him. His eyes reflected Hiccup's gaze intensely, unwilling to look away. "You see me," he exhaled on a ghost of a whisper. Then he let out a thin afterthought of a laugh, then a much stronger whoop of triumph accompanied by a sunshine smile. "He sees me!" he crowed.

"Yes, I just — yiurgh?"

The fey boy, not listening to Hiccup, had seized Hiccup's face in his cold hands, and his expression when he looked at Hiccup was glowing. "I'm Jack."

"Jack, my face," said Hiccup through his slightly-squished face.

Jack still wasn't listening. "You see me…then…" His expression began to crinkle. "Wait. You've been able to see me THIS WHOLE TIME!?"

"Yesh."

Jack shook Hiccup's head slightly as he attempted to gesticulate without letting go. "THIS WHOLE TIME! I'VE BEEN FOLLOWING YOU AROUND FOR WEEKS!"

"I know!" Hiccup shoved the faery off and looked around for a way to escape.

"But- but-" Jack drifted in space for a moment, his mouth opening and closing. "Why didn't you ever say anything?" he asked in distress, brow furrowed.

"Because!" Hiccup shouted, turning on Jack. "You think I like being crazy?!" He was breathing hard.

Jack's mouth shut with a snap. He bumped into a bookcase, but he didn't seem to notice. "You're not crazy," he said, his voice gone low, shoulders sagging.

"_I_ know that," said Hiccup, gesturing at himself, agitated. "But that's what everybody else in this town thinks, because I can see creatures — people, who aren't there." Hiccup stepped back, glaring defiantly at Jack. "That's what they think. That there's something wrong with me, like my mother…" His voice trailed off. He shifted and rubbed his arms, uncomfortable. For a second he swayed, light-headed and feeling like he was going to fall over. The realization of what he had done was just beginning to set in.

Jack let out a deep breath. "You're not, though," he began, his tone soft, patient. "That's…that's ridiculous." He paused, weighing the silence before he went on. "A while ago, people with like you were revered. They were considered sacred. Special."

Now it was Hiccup's turn to be stunned into silence. He blinked several times at Jack, feeling a prickling sensation building up in his eyes, and he turned away. Stalling for time and not knowing what else to do, he began to pick up the books once more, turning them over and over in his hands. They became an obsessively neat pile at his elbow while he struggled for words. His panic was rising, choking him.

"Nobody…" He swallowed. "…ever told me that."

"Well." Jack dropped onto the floor and stood at Hiccup's shoulder. "I just did." He pondered the situation for a moment while he stared at the floor. "Hiccup, this is a gift. You have a power no one else has! You have to use it."

"No, I don't." Steeling his resolve, Hiccup straightened up. "I can't talk to you," he announced, and he stalked away.

"Wait, no!" Jack darted after Hiccup and reached for his shoulder, but Hiccup pushed him off. "You can't do that, I need your help-"

"Leave me alone," Hiccup muttered through clenched teeth. He scurried past the main desk, calling out to the librarian, "Hey, I gotta go. There's been a, um…there's something. Something happened. I'll see you later!" He waved over his shoulder as he disappeared through the heavy double doors, leaving behind a perplexed librarian (and a cart full of unsorted books that she would now have to shelve).

"Hiccup, wait-" Jack barely managed to slip through the door before it closed with a thud as he tried to follow Hiccup.

Hiccup dug into his pockets. The phone shook in his hands as he tried to punch in a message to Astrid for rescue. She couldn't be that far away by now.

_-I need you to turn around and come get me. _

He was breathing too fast. He alarmed several bystanders as he fled down the sidewalk, following the same direction that Astrid had left in. Jack zipped after him and threw himself in front of Hiccup.

"Will you please listen to me?" he pleaded, but Hiccup kept right on walking with only a small twitch. Jack was shoved roughly out of the way. "Hey!"

Hiccup's mouth was pressed into a thin line of anxiety, and he kept rubbing his arms, his eyes darting this way and that. Frustrated, Jack put his feet down on the sidewalk and stared after Hiccup. The expression on his face crumpled.

Hiccup didn't look back. Astrid's car slid around the curb ahead and she pulled up beside him. He yanked open the passenger door and dumped himself into the seat, while a car behind them honked at Astrid for sticking out into the lane.

"I got your text. What happened?" asked Astrid as she gave the other car the finger.

Feeling better at the sight of her, Hiccup sunk into the seat with a tired sigh. Now, safe and locked away where the faery couldn't get at him, Hiccup chanced a look behind. "Nothing," he said, as his eyes found the figure standing alone on the sidewalk, hands dangling at his sides. "I don't know. I don't want to talk about it."

Astrid didn't press him for answers, but she frowned out at the road ahead as she drove. Hiccup kept his eyes turned away toward the window, watching the outside world flow past his reflection, the cars and buildings and people and the lurking creatures, and wished that he could fall asleep for a thousand years.


	2. Window Pains

It was a savage night. A sharp wind dragged dead leaves through the streets. The dry rattling sound kept Jack company as he leapt from rooftop to rooftop, riding the wind. He touched everything within reach as he went along, and a trail of thick frost was spread wide behind him, glittering bright in the moonlight.

Below his feet, the windows spilled golden light through the gaps of heavy blinds, onto neat, manicured lawns and shiny foreign cars. Jack took fiendish glee in freezing their grass and gardens as he flew. Behind the houses, the forest stood ancient and watchful, towering over the pristine neighborhood. Jack felt small next to so many massive trees, which watched him, ever silent and indifferent. He glanced up at them, feeling the tiny hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

The house he was looking for was at the top, on the outskirts of the suburb, a large, two-story building of cobblestones and stucco behind a wrought-iron gate. Crouched under the trees, it looked like the forest was going to swallow it. Jack alighted on the front porch, standing quietly for a moment to ground himself.

The front room was empty. He pressed his face to the window to peer into the gloom, but he saw only bookshelves, perfectly filled with thick tomes and volumes. All of them were shiny and smooth and wore no signs of use. Clearly for display only.

He crept around back, where one window was lit up bright in the night. Jack stood among the potted plants on the back patio, staring in at the kitchen. Astrid was on the other side of the glass, trying to cook with increasing frustration. She had a basting brush in one hand, held poised over a raw chicken, and her other hand held open a cook book, which she was scowling at, the corners of her mouth twisted down. She was alone.

On the counter, her phone lit up and floated across the countertop, buzzing. Astrid snapped it up. The cookbook hit the floor with a thud, but Astrid left it there. The phone screen cast a pale glow over her features as she scowled at it, then threw it back down in disgust. Jack moved closer to see what it said.

_—Working late. Won't be home for dinner. Sorry. _

Sauce oozed off the brush and dripped onto the floor. Astrid thrust it into the sink. Jack shook his head and winced, but that was her problem. He raised a hand to tap on the window.

"Hey! Astrid!" he called out against the glass.

But Astrid was already leaving the room. She stalked out, leaving everything behind her the way it was, sauce everywhere, raw chicken warming up on the cutting board.

"Astrid! …humph." Jack's face scrunched up in annoyance. A light clicked on upstairs and he followed it, landing on the roof outside Astrid's bedroom. He watched her throw herself on her bed and immediately get back up again to pace. Her hands kept clenching and unclenching like she wanted to hit something. Jack started to knock again, but he paused. He lowered his hand until it came to rest with his fingertips against the glass, cool, smooth.

Astrid sighed and flicked her bangs out of her face. Her bookshelf, full of worn, dog-eared paperbacks, spilled out onto the floor. She bent and picked up several books from the pile. Jack could see the titles: _Understanding Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia: A Short Introduction. Helping a Loved One with Mental Illness._ Astrid stood up and moved to the drawings that were taped on the walls. Her gaze traveled between the drawings and the books, troubled. She turned the books over in her hands for a moment, then wrinkled her nose and dropped them back on the floor. They slid off each other, wrinkling their pages.

With a jolt, Jack recognized the drawings; he'd seen Hiccup carrying papers like these, but had never noticed what was on them: sketches of the fair folk, rendered in specific detail. Jack tipped forward and knocked on the window, three times, not too hard, not too soft.

She didn't hear. She ran her fingers over the edges of one drawing, squinting at it.

"Hey!" Jack knocked again, harder this time. When she still didn't move, he kept knocking. Finally he raised his fist and banged on the window, setting the glass pane to rattling.

She turned with a start and shot the window an alarmed look. For a second Jack smiled, but she just stared, and his smile melted into a scowl.

"Hey!" he yelled, continuing to bang on the glass. "Hey! Pay attention!"

Finally, she got a flashlight out of a drawer and approached the window, squinting to see into the darkness. The flashlight flicked on. Jack's heart leapt into his throat. She was going to see him, she was going to talk to him —

She opened the window.

"Ast-"

He had to leap back as she leaned out. Her gaze went right through him, then swept past and around. He stilled, fingers scraping the edges of the shingles. "Astrid?"

"God, it's cold out here," she said to herself, and then she withdrew into her room and shut the window.

He sat back on his heels, disappointment soaking into his bones. He didn't know why, but he thought Astrid would have the same power as Hiccup. They hung around each other so much, Jack had assumed that they must have that in common. But she could not see him.

"Doesn't matter," he said to the window. "There's still Hiccup."

He moved away from the bright glare and settled down, dangling his feet over the edge of the roof. Now that night had set in, he had nothing to do. Everyone was asleep or vanished into their iron-guarded homes, and all town-fey were too afraid to speak to him.

With a deep, weary sigh, he tipped his head back and stared at the sky. The moon, waning thinner now, peered between the treetops in gleaming slivers of luminescence. "Somebody sees me," he whispered under his breath, as if he were talking to it. A strange half-smile crept over his face. The moon said nothing, but the wind ruffled Jack's hair.

A golden gleaming light flared to life somewhere out in the woods. Jack caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of his eyes and bolted up, staring.

After a moment, the golden glow appeared again, and Jack leapt to his feet, bouncing eagerly on his toes. He dove off the roof, into the wind. It carried him through the trees, branch to branch as Jack followed the light with a maniacal grin. Signs of civilization gave way to dirt and foliage among the tree trunks.

"Sandy!" Jack called, getting closer. "Hey, Sandy!"

The light was a small cloud of gleaming sand. Jack plunged into it and it dissolved, swirling away so that Jack came out the other side. He landed face-first in the dirt, but he sat up, laughing as he pulled pine needles and leaves out of his hair. The cloud collected itself and turned into a short elfin boy with a wide grin.

"Sandy!" Jack wiped a smudge of mud off his cheek. "Hey! Long time no see, my friend."

At this, Sandy bowed with a flourish and gave Jack a _What can you do?_ shrug.

"But what are you doing here? You know, there's a human town less than a mile away." Jack settled among the ferns, leaning back on his hands, and took a deep cleansing breath. The air out here was fresher, cleaner than the harsh town air, less tainted by the scents of iron and chemicals.

Sandy drifted toward the ground. _I'm traveling for the court, _he signed at Jack. _The migration for Samhain has begun._ His hands sculpted the air, forming symbols with the help from his sand. Jack understood him.

"Oh, yeah…" The brightness faded from Jack's face. He shifted, folding one leg under the other. "I guess that's happening, then. Wow."

Sandy waited for Jack to say more, but Jack was silent. Sandy drifted closer, nudging at Jack's shoulder. _Speaking of which..._ he signed _...what about you...? _

Storm clouds passed over Jack's face. "It's fine," he said. "The humans are...fine." He bent over and wrapped his arms around his knees, leaning away from Sandy.

Sandy pondered him. _Have you found one yet? _

Jack sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I wish I hadn't," he said, "but really I have."

Sandy's eyebrows knit together. _What does that mean? _

"There's this boy," Jack began. "I can't," he said. "I couldn't use him for this. I'm… not him."

Sandy didn't understand. He titled his head and made several aborted motions with his hand, but he couldn't figure out what to ask. The sand twitched.

Jack leaned back against a tree and tilted his head back to look up at the splintered chinks of visible sky. "The truth is," he mumbled, "I don't think I can do this job, but I have no choice. I'm almost out of time."

Sandy pressed his lips together and put a finger to his mouth thoughtfully. _I don't understand_, he signed._ You've done this before. _

"Have I? I can't remember." Jack's shoulders slumped in exhaustion. Somewhere in the forest, crickets chirped, then fell silent at the frenzied rushing of high wind in the treetops. "Tell me what I did before."

_You know I'm not allowed. _Sandy drifted forward and touched Jack's shoulder. When Jack looked up, he presented him with a big question mark. _What will you do? _

Jack pushed the question mark away. "I don't know! I'm running out of time. I don't have a way out and if I don't find one, he'll force me."

Sandy rocked back on his heels, his eyebrows furrowed. _You have little choice. Just use this one you've already found._

Jack shot up, rustling the ferns. "No!"

Sandy stuck his hands on his hips. _Why not? He's but one human, after all. You can always find another one. They're like fruit flies, always dying and being replaced._

Jack's eyes flashed. "I'm not going to use this one."

_He won't know what's going on anyway. _

But Jack just shook his head, mouth pressed into a thin line. Sandy shrugged and rose to brush himself off. _Alright, but you will have to figure something out. _

Jack slumped and leaned his face against his hands. "I know," he muttered against his palm.

_I must go,_ Sandy signed with a sad smile at Jack. _I will see you at the ceremony. _

Jack leaned back with an exhausted sigh, raking his hands through his hair again. "Goodnight, Sandy," he said at last. "Travel safely. Áwærest déaþscúa."

Sandy stood at attention in midair and saluted. _Æfterfolgest léoht._ He began to float off, in the direction Jack knew the court lay. _Don't let the iron poisoning get you. _

"I think I have more important things to worry about," Jack grumbled under his breath. He crouched for a moment, watching Sandy's golden mist disappear into the forest, and then he went his way, back toward the town, to find some way to spend the rest of his night.

* * *

Hiccup spent the next three days inside the house, restless and sick with anxiety.

The first day, he hunted down every single drawing of the fey he had, boxed them up, and shoved them out of sight beneath his bed. He cleaned his room and immediately turned around to mess it up again, three times, trying to distract himself. Stoick came home to find him curled up on the sofa watching old cartoon reruns. He frowned a great deal through his bushy beard and cast concerned glances at Hiccup, but he didn't ask any more questions about hallucinations.

Before crawling into bed that night, Hiccup glanced through his curtains. Jack's electrical pole was empty. Hiccup pulled back the curtain farther, but the pole definitely stood stark and deserted, the fey boy nowhere in sight. Instead of feeling relieved, Hiccup was more anxious than before. He got into bed and lay staring up at the ceiling, while Toothless curled up on his chest and snored. Twice more in the night, Hiccup got up to check. The final time, Jack was back, his figure dim in the darkness. A sound caught in Hiccup's throat. He dropped the curtain and stood in his bare feet on the cold floor, wishing he could scream, and barely slept for the rest of the night.

The second day, Hiccup stumbled out of his room to find Stoick had already left, and he had also pointedly left one dose of Hiccup's schizophrenia medication on the counter by the kitchen sink. Hiccup weighed the pill in his hand before crushing it and washing it down the garbage disposal. He spent most of that day pacing, working both himself and Toothless into a state of agitation. His phone kept buzzing, but he buried it under the couch cushions where he couldn't hear it. When he heard Stoick pull into the driveway, he scurried into his bedroom, and didn't come down for dinner.

That night he checked the electrical pole again. Jack was still there. When he saw Hiccup peering behind the curtain, he sat up and waved, hopeful. Hiccup scowled, set his jaw, and yanked the curtain shut.

The next morning, Stoick came to check on him early, while Hiccup still lay in bed, eyes open, staring at the wall. He tapped on the door, and then after a moment, cracked it open.

"Hiccup? Er…" He edged into the doorway. "Ye awake?"

Hiccup groaned.

"Still… still not feelin' well, eh?" Stoick's voice strained to sound normal, and he fidgeted, fingers drumming on the edge of the doorway. Hiccup didn't roll over. "I'm going into the garage early today," he rumbled. When Hiccup said nothing, he nodded to himself. "I'll call in sick for ye on my way out."

Hiccup suppressed a sigh. "Thanks."

Stoick nodded again. He hovered in the door for a moment more and then said, "Alright, then. I'll see ye tonight," and left.

That day was the worst so far. Hiccup had to throw away another pill, trying not to think about his father's worried face as he did so. The hours went on without end. The silent house creaked and groaned at weird times, and Hiccup kept going upstairs and downstairs, Toothless padding at his heels. He didn't retrieve his phone from under the cushions, hoping that it had run out of battery. By the time Stoick came home again, Hiccup had given up and gone to bed again, weary to the bone.

Stoick, covered in grease and dirt from working all day, creaked up the stairs to find Hiccup. "Son," he began, coming to stand in Hiccup's tiny room. "Hiccup," said Stoick kindly. "Are ye alright?"

Hiccup pulled blankets over his nose and stared at his father, working out the best way to answer. "Well…I'm sick."

Stoick's hands clenched and unclenched at his sides; he didn't seem to know what to do with them. Finally he stuck them on his hips. "But are ye sure that's all?" he said gruffly. "There's nothing else bothering ye?"

"Um…yeees?" Hiccup shifted; he didn't like where this was going.

Stoick was scrutinizing him with an unhappy look in his eyes. "Ye've seemed…really anxious lately," he said.

"Aw, c'mon, dad," Hiccup tried to chuckle nervously, but it fell flat. "It's me. When am I not anxious about something?"

Stoick did not laugh; on the contrary, his frown deepened. "I mean more than usual."

"I haven't!"

"Astrid called me today. She's worried about ye. She said she's been callin' ye but ye haven't answered." Stoick eyebrows formed a little peak of concern.

Hiccup felt his stomach churn, but he couldn't be sick because it was empty.

"Uh, well, you know, I think I turned my phone off the other day, and I forgot to…turn it back on."

"She also said ye seemed upset on Saturday when she picked ye up."

Hiccup fell silent.

After the silence seemed to stretch on for forever, Stoick heaved a gusty sigh. "Hiccup," he said heavily. "Son. Are ye sure there hasn't been anythin' on yer mind? This isn't…" Stoick swallowed. "This isn't about…yer mother, is it?"

Stoick thought Hiccup was going to meet the same fate as his mother. Misery wrenched at Hiccup's heart, but he still couldn't tell him the truth. He hunched up, miserable, his toes brushing the wall. "I just don't feel well."

Stoick bowed his head for a moment and stared at the floor, his beard twitching with his frown. "I know…" he began again in a low voice, "I know people around town say things about her, but she was a good, sensible woman."

"I know," Hiccup said faintly. "It's not that. I'm just sick. I'll call Astrid and talk to her."

"Mmm." Stoick stared at the floor. He still didn't seem satisfied, but there wasn't much else he could do. He spoke again. "Alright, then. I'll let ye rest. I'll leave some dinner in the fridge for ye. Come down if ye get hungry."

Unable to speak, Hiccup simply nodded his head, and Stoick went downstairs, shutting the door behind him. Hiccup felt wretched, guilty, small. He had lied to his father, more than he had lied to Astrid, when he knew both of them only wanted to help. The room darkened around him, but he didn't get up to turn on a light. Nor did he go down to eat, like he knew his father hoped he would, or call Astrid to explain his behavior, like he had said he would. When Toothless crawled on top of him, chirping his concern, Hiccup did not get up to play with the laser light with him, like he normally would have, and Toothless finally curled up on his chest while Hiccup ran his hands over his ears.

"What am I going to do, bud?" Hiccup asked the cat miserably.

There was a knock at the window.

Hiccup froze. Maybe it was just the wind, or a tree branch, or a kid throwing pebbles, or even his imagination. Toothless, picking up on Hiccup's unease, perked his head up, looking around in confusion. The knock at the window came again, louder and more insistent this time. Toothless growled. The knocking didn't stop, growing until the window panes rattled in their frames.

Hiccup flung himself off the bed, almost knocking off Toothless, who bounded after him, and went to the window. He could hear muttering faint on the other side of it, and he jerked open the curtains.

Jack was outside, crouched on his roof, mouthing through the glass.

"Can I come in?"


	3. The First Cut is the Hardest

Trigger warning in this chapter for self-harm.

* * *

"Oh _no_," said Hiccup, frustration rising to the surface, and he opened the window. "What are you doing on my roof?!" he hissed as the window pane slid open. He was completely exasperated; this stupid faery was breaking all the rules of Hiccup's carefully constructed world. "You can't — I don't — "

"I know, I know, I'm sorry." Jack inched forward, but as soon as his bare feet touched the metal window frame, there was a hiss and Jack leapt back with a sharp grimace. He snarled, defensive. Hiccup felt a twinge of dark satisfaction, which was immediately swallowed up by guilt, and the next moment both he and Jack were looking rather abashed at themselves. Hiccup stepped back to make room, and Jack slipped into the room without touching down until he settled on Hiccup's bed.

"Hey!" Hiccup protested, his guilt evaporating. He didn't have the chance to say anything else, because Toothless launched himself at Jack with a tiny roar, claws extended.

He landed on Jack's head and attached himself, claws dug into his scalp. Jack scrambled away, trying to peel Toothless off, and scurried up the wall. Toothless came unstuck and landed on his feet. He kept trying to claw his way up the walls. For several minutes, Jack bounded off the walls and ceiling as the enraged cat tried to chase him down, and Hiccup stood in the middle of the room, watching in horror and waving his arms. It wasn't very helpful, but he couldn't yell, because he was afraid Stoick might hear him.

"Why do you have a creature in here?" Jack yelped, leaping from desk to dresser. Toothless bounded after him.

"More like, why did I let a faery _stalker_ in here!?" Hiccup snapped. He scooped Toothless up and Toothless tried to wriggle out of Hiccup's arms. "Toothless, calm down. Please, bud." He rubbed his thumb between Toothless' ears.

Toothless gave him a disgruntled look, but he stopped struggling. Hiccup loosened his grip and Toothless crawled onto Hiccup's shoulder, sitting bunched up with a possessive tail curled around Hiccup's throat. The message was clear: 'This human is _my_ human.'

Hiccup let him stay and turned back to Jack. "_Why_ are you _here_?" He threw his hands out in irritation.

"Looking for _you_," said Jack with a strained eye-roll. His gaze flicked away from Toothless and he sighed. "I need to talk to you."

"I told you I don't want to talk to you. I _can't_ talk to you," he amended. "I — do you know what they — " He motioned vaguely. " —could do to me? If I just started _talking_ to people that aren't supposed to be there? _That nobody else can see_, I might add."

Jack leaned forward, toes curling around the top edge of Hiccup's dresser. "I know," he reassured Hiccup. "They'll think you're crazy. But you're not, and I need your help." He sent a pleading look at Hiccup.

Hiccup deliberated. He wavered back and forth, desperate that his human life should remain safe and secure, but also hideously charmed by the idea of learning more about the other world. Toothless's tail brushed against his throat while Hiccup chewed on his lip and mulled on it. "Mmmmm," he said. He started to lean toward the window, thinking of kicking Jack back out, but then pulled back. "Arrrgh — okay, tell me," he blurted out.

"Yes!" Jack jumped and punched the air.

"I'm not promising anything," Hiccup added hurriedly, alarmed. "I just want to know."

Jack ducked his head. "Alright, fine. I understand." He climbed down from the dresser. "But still. You're awesome." An infectious grin tugged at his mouth.

Hiccup felt his face heat up. "Just tell me," he mumbled, embarrassed, and flopped onto the edge of the bed, unsure what else to do with himself.

"Alright." Jack straightened up and cleared his throat formally. "Now, as you know, we've been hanging out for a while—"

"Not really."

"Okay, well I've been following you around for a while, so I think that counts for something."

Hiccup just shook his head, mouth pressed into a disapproving line, but he didn't say anything.

Jack waved a dismissive hand at him. "Anyway," he went on, "I think we know each other well enough by now, and I know that you're a _kind soul_ and a _good person_, and…" Hiccup raised his eyebrows, but Jack couldn't think of anything more specific to flatter him with, so he took a deep breath and just blurted it out. "I need you to help me find my memories."

"_…what_."

"My memories," Jack repeated. "Someone, er…took them. About seven years ago."

"But _why_?" Hiccup's mind was whirling with questions. How did someone take memories? Did that happen a lot? Were memories like a commodity? Or currency? What did one do with stolen memories? Were they used in folk spells?

"I think I did something." Jack wore a puzzled expression, mouth twisted thoughtfully; then he grinned. "But I can't remember what."

"Well, imagine that," said Hiccup dryly. "But why not go get them back by yourself? What do you need me for?"

"Because, by law no fey can lay hands on them. But you!" Jack crept closer to Hiccup, eyes lit up with anticipation. Hiccup leaned back, uncomfortable. "You're human. You have The Sight. You can see through glamours!"

"Glamours? What—" Hiccup's licked his lips; his mouth was going dry. "Can't you see through glamours? …how come none of the other fair folk can do it?"

Jack reeled himself in, surprised. "Folk don't have the Sight."

If Hiccup hadn't already been sitting down, he would have collapsed in surprise. "Wait…" he faltered. "You can't…see through magic?"

"We can't see through _glamours_."

"Glamours?"

"Illusions. Not like you can." Jack looked at him, expression soft. "_No one_ can like you can."

The bottom fell out of Hiccup's stomach. He felt kind of dizzy, his head buzzing, his cheeks heating up like a furnace. He lowered one hand to Toothless's head, and Toothless looked up at him in concern, chirruping. "Not even the fair folk…" Hiccup licked his lips. "I can do something even the fair folk can't?"

Jack studied him, slightly bemused. "…yeah," he said at last. "Will you help me?"

Hiccup huffed and gave him a hesitant, sideways look. "If I do, will you leave me alone?"

Jack pressed his lips together. He pushed his fingers through his bangs, hiding his face halfway behind his hand, frowning deeply. His shoulders tensed up underneath his t-shirt. "Yes," he muttered, reluctant. "If you want me to."

Hiccup's eyes narrowed. "What do I have to do? I'm not saying yes," he added before Jack could get too excited.

"We'll sneak you into the court. You just have to look around for them. I don't think they'll be hard for you to find, if you can See."

"Court!" Hiccup shot up and let go of Toothless, who plopped to the flour and ran a circle around Jack, sniffing at his ankles. "What court!?"

"The fey court."

"You didn't say anything about a court!" Hiccup started to get up, then sunk back down. "If there's a court for the fair folk, why do so many of you hang around in Berk? I know you don't like it here."

Jack, eyeing Toothless, shuffled back like a wounded creature. "We're not allowed at the court," he muttered, one shoulder hunched up. "We're outcasts. Most of us were banished here."

"Oooooh...really?" Hiccup's eyebrows rose as he understood something he didn't get before. Now he got it. "Wait!" He realized something else. "Is that what you meant? In the library, you said something about being stuck. You mean you're stuck in Berk?"

"Yeah."

Hiccup didn't pay much attention to Jack; he was focused on some distant point, eyes glazed, forming all his own conclusions. "And me finding your memories will help you go back?"

Jack moved away further until he was pressed against the wall, hand still in his hair, eyes fixed on Hiccup, who was still lost in thought. Jack's throat worked as he swallowed. "Yeah, something like that."

Hiccup's expression wilted. "But I would have to go there, into the court, with all those fey." Jack said nothing; he lowered his hand to his knees, fingers curled up and twitching, knuckles whitening. Hiccup finally looked at him, but he didn't really see him. "What did you do?" breathed Hiccup, "to get banished here?"

Jack's mouth twisted into a bitter smile. "I don't remember."

"Oh." Hiccup's voice went flat. "Of _course_ you don't."

Jack offered him only a rueful shrug. "What do you say?" he tried, his voice breaking on the question. In the small quiet room, his helplessness seemed loud. Toothless, unsure of whether he was a threat or not, sat down in front of him, staring, the end of his tail flicking back and forth. Jack offered him his hand. Toothless sniffed at him, nose wiggling, and then darted out his tongue and licked one of Jack's knuckles. Deciding Jack wasn't a threat, he butted his head against Jack's hand, demanding pats.

Hiccup lowered his eyes to his hands as they picked at invisible loose threads on his sheets, and, slowly, he shook his head. "I can't," he mumbled to his hands. He couldn't look at Jack. "I can't help you." He rose from the bed, still refusing eye contact. "You should go." He went to the window and slid it open again, letting in the cold night air.

"Alright." Jack crawled out onto the roof, careful to avoid the metal window frame. Hiccup watched him brush windowsill-dust from his knees and stretch himself out. The night was empty, silent, even the indifferent moon hidden behind thick clouds, but the light from the street lamp fell across Jack's face, throwing his features into stark relief. Jack stepped up to the edge of the roof, toes brushing the gutter, and prepared to leap into the wind.

"What…" Hiccup cleared his throat; Jack looked back over his shoulder at him, his face impassive. "What is the court like?"

A rush of wind picked up, rustling the trees. Jack smiled, bitter. "I don't think you would like it," he answered. Then he was gone, already being carried away by the wind. Hiccup suppressed an annoyed eye roll and slammed the window shut.

* * *

Deep in the forest, hours from Berk, lay an entrance to the Shadow Court. A cluster of hulking boulders, trapped under the long-twisting roots of an enormous tree, hid a jagged crevice. Jack, perched unhappily on the rough surface of one root, stared down into it with a scowl. Stagnant air rose out of the opening. Repugnant.

With a deep breath, he braced himself and wriggled into the hole. It dropped into a wide tunnel, which the light pouring in overhead only illuminated for a couple feet, and then plunged into darkness. Jack eyed the dark maw ahead of him; he would have to walk the whole path, some several miles — flight was forbidden within the realm of the Shadow King. Walking here made his skin prickle; already he felt the walls closing in around him, suffocating and claustrophobic as a coffin. He felt like he couldn't breathe. He pressed one hand to the wall, and it came away damp from the clammy condensation that clung to the stone.

He cupped his fingers around his mouth and blew gently into his hand until ice formed over his skin, glowing with a faint pulse. The glowing ice that spread across his palm was unnecessary, but it comforted him. It was dead silent, with not even a faint echo of his own footsteps to liven the atmosphere — the surrounding earth stifled all sound. Even as the earth swallowed him up, as he grew closer to the main court, as the tunnel began to branch off more and more into other tunnels and rooms, it was soundless and still. People began to pass him occasionally, other fey with pale faces and hollow eyes, whose mouths were pressed into thin lines. They all moved to the side, fearful, when they recognized him as one of the King's _favored_ ones.

The tunnels widened, until they grew into hallways structured with thick, woven roots over columns of rock. After who knew how long, he came to the great wooden doors with their carved runes that soared up, giants in the gloom.

Jack took a deep breath, crushed the ice-light in his hand, and knocked on the doors three times with a heavy hand.

They swung open on their own, brushing across the earthen floor with only a whisper of sound. He stepped into the cavern. The Shadow King's throne loomed all the way at the other end, and here the largest of all trees reached their roots deep into the earth on either side of it, flanking the rough-hewn seat. The roots had been hacked off in many places to make room for it. The only sources of light, small phosphorescent stones that let out only a very faint glow, were hung in lanterns on the twisting roots. They let out hardly enough light for Jack to see.

Jack approached the stone throne, passing the somber court fey who stood in lines against the sides. Jack did not kneel; he stood, watching his master, who was only visible by the faint reflections in his eyes. The rest of him was wreathed in too deep a darkness to see.

"I'm back," said Jack, trying not to breathe through his nose. The whole place smelled of decay. Not the sweet-flowers kind — the dead corpses kind.

"So you are," the Shadow King responded dryly. There was a rustling as he leaned forward and fixed his gaze on Jack. "You stink of iron."

"I don't really think there's any way to avoid that."

One of the sentries in the shadows coughed. Jack's neck went taught with the effort of not looking at him — he was pretty sure the sentry was trying not to laugh. His mouth contorted with the effort of keeping a solemn expression. There were a few other snickers from fey clustered against the walls.

Pitch's brow drew down, eyes narrowed into slits. "Tell me what you've brought," he said. His fingers tightened on the arms of his throne. "How is that human town they call Berk?"

Now Jack felt himself grow cold but kept his head up. Aiming for vagueness, he raised one shoulder in a shrug. "Much the same."

Pitch tilted his head, considering. "There is less than a fortnight until Samhain," he said. "You must have brought a sacrifice with you for the teind." His voice sharpened to steel. "Well, where is it?" The question rang out like a whip crack, then faded away.

In the ensuing silence, Jack put his hands behind his back, clutching at his wrist tightly. He raised his chin, eyes on the floor, and couldn't answer. The silence thickened.

Pitch's eyes flashed a warning. "Tell me." A direct order.

Jack swallowed. There was no real way to prepare for this. "I didn't bring anyone with me." He could feel the shock of the guards — that he would _dare_ defy The Shadow King like this. And indeed, Pitch grew angry.

"…_what_," he snapped.

Jack steeled himself. "I don't have anyone for the sacrifice," he repeated. Chills began to race over his skin; he suppressed a shiver.

There was a hush throughout the great hall as everyone waited with bated breath. Jack could hear his own heartbeat, felt it throbbing in his throat, wanted to squeeze his eyes shut but didn't. Freezing air drifted off the floor, curling around his bare ankles. He felt stiff.

"You mean to tell me," Pitch began, his voice a distant earthquake, "that you have returned to me empty-handed? All this time you've been in that human _infestation_, yet you couldn't capture just one insignificant human?"

"I can't just choose someone for you to take their life away!" Jack burst out. Several fair folk, lost in the shadows where he couldn't see them, gasped. Without meaning to move, Jack had taken a step back, hands balled into fists at his sides.

"Someone?" Pitch repeated. He let out a dark chuckle that echoed around the chamber, fading deep into mockery. _Someone-one-one-one_. "Just one human. Their lives mean nothing to us." His face darkened. "You've spent too much time among them."

Wordless, Jack shook his head.

Pitch leaned his chin against one hand and with his other, raised a single finger toward Jack. "Stand still."

Here it came. Jack felt his feet glue themselves to the floor, and his eyes combed the shadows, looking for a friendly face, for help, but no one could help him. Here surrounded by his own kind, he was more alone than ever.

"Bring him the iron knife."

_No._ Jack's skin felt tight, his body betraying him as he couldn't run. A dark Fearling stepped forward, its feet rasping as they dragged across the cold floor. The arm bearing the knife formed out of the darkness itself, reaching forward, and dropped the knife into Jack's hands.

The blade burned him as soon as it hit his palms, and he yanked his hands back with a quickly-swallowed cry. The knife clattered to the floor. His skin showed no marks but he could feel where the metal touched, the nerves underneath angry and fizzling.

"Pick it up," Pitch ordered him.

He retrieved the blade, careful this time to touch only the wooden handle. The blade was blunt and heavy craftsmanship, flaking dark red rust off the back edge. Jack shifted between his feet and raised fearful eyes up to Pitch.

Pitch was smiling. "Turn it on yourself," he said. "Make a cut, here." With a lazy movement, he indicated a section along Jack's rib-cage, where the flesh was thin. "Do it now."

Pitch left no room in his commands for error or negotiation. Jack's hands shook as he pulled up his shirt on one side and pivoted the blade, lining it up against his ribs.

The very first slice sent fire through him, his skin twitching under the cold iron as it craved to get away. It was a quick slice, over and done within a moment. He gritted his teeth, ducking his head, but no noise escaped him, and he raised his eyes toward Pitch again.

"Again." Pitch's smile grew. "This time deeper."

He forced his hand. The metal bit into him, searing and angry and sharp and _agony_, but he still didn't make a sound, even as his blood seeped out and trickled down his side, leaving a long red trail. The knife had teeth, or felt like it did. Jack swallowed before he looked up at Pitch, the cold fury in his eyes the only evidence of his hatred. _Does this satisfy you?_ he wanted to spit at him.

The grin the Shadow King wore was wide and smug now, delight unfurled on his face. He settled back against his throne, getting comfortable, preparing for a long show.

"_Again_."


	4. On The Threshold

Liminal spaces are thresholds of the world, places caught between two existences. They are crossroads, doorways, rest stops along the highway where bony empty-eyed children may appear to beg their way into your car. Liminal spaces are the moment between waking and sleeping, when you are stuck halfway in the dream world, halfway in the waking earth. Liminal spaces are the breaths between actions, the pause between sentences, the midnights between days. They are places where the veil is thinnest between two worlds, where many people visit, but almost none stay.

Hiccup was caught in a liminal space, stuck between knowing and acting. It was the feeling of waiting, sick apprehension carving out his stomach, a hollowness settling between his ribs, though he couldn't tell what he was waiting for. Something just felt off.

The next day he went back to school. He glanced over his shoulder a couple times as he waited at the bus stop, but he caught no glimpses of white hair nor snatches of irreverent laughter, and so stopped looking. Still, their conversation the night before loomed over him, nagging in the back of his mind; he couldn't shake the feeling that it was somehow unfinished.

Prickling unease settled in the back of his mind, lingering there.

When he slunk into the classroom, slouched over and trying not to drag his feet, Astrid honed in on him like a shark that smelled blood. She'd been sitting in a desk behind Ruffnut, with Ruffnut twisted around to talk to her, babbling about some college guy she'd been texting. Poor Astrid was doing her best to ignore her, carving on the surface of the desk with a smuggled-in pocket knife.

"Hiccup!" Astrid spotted him and sat bolt upright, cutting Ruffnut off mid-sentence. "What happened to you?!"

Hiccup slid into his seat, ignoring the disgusted look that Ruffnut shot him as she turned away. "Eh, nothing," he said to Astrid. "I've just been kind of sick."

She caught his double meaning and lowered her voice. "Anything important?"

"Uh…"

He was prevented from saying anything by the arrival of the teacher; it was just as well, because he didn't yet know what to tell Astrid… if to tell Astrid.

"I'll explain later," he muttered.

She looked faintly peeved, but nodded as she subtly slid her knife into her backpack. "Workshop?"

"Yeah."

Hiccup found himself listening for Jack constantly. Every time he looked around and didn't see him, he expected to feel relieved. Instead, an empty feeling opened up in him and grew. Something was wrong. That stupid faery had been there, shadowing him for weeks, watching his every moment, but suddenly he was gone, and Hiccup couldn't just believe he'd left merely to sulk. He itched to get outside and look for him, but he was trapped in the school, with other fey breathing down his neck.

Astrid's workshop was a space above her parents' double garage that she had secretly commandeered for herself. It had become a testament to her love of weapons where she did all of her metalwork. Hiccup had no idea how she kept it hidden from her parents, but he was glad for it. They skipped their last class, and Astrid drove them there in her car, silent the whole way.

The afternoon sunlight slanting through the windows of the workshop was peaceful, golden and lighting up the floating dust specks. They dropped their bags by the door, and Astrid twisted her hair up off her neck.

"What are you working on today?" Hiccup asked, seating himself on his usual stool.

Astrid sighed thoughtfully, finished pinning up her hair, and put her hands on her hips. "I don't know. Probably another weapon. What do you think?"

Hiccup glanced around at the axes, swords, and daggers lining the walls - Astrid had a certain fondness for them. "Yeah, you definitely don't have enough of those."

Astrid just laughed. "Well, maybe a new kind then. A sword?"

"Eh, why not? Nothing like using your spare time to make murder weapons."

Astrid snorted. "I think I have some tempered steel around here somewhere," she said, which was really unnecessary because Astrid always had everything 'around here somewhere' in her workshop.

Astrid busied herself measuring the steel, while Hiccup settled down with his notebook and sketched. It was the most relaxed he'd been in a long time. The lines flowed together on the page, and he let himself draw almost without thinking, just following where his hand went. The sunlight grew less golden and took on another tint. After a while, he set down his pencil to examine his work and realized he'd drawn a bunch of portraits. Portraits of a certain winter sprite. Annoyed, he looked over at Astrid, who was absorbed in her own work. It looked different than usual.

"That's...a little short for a sword, isn't it?" said Hiccup.

She held it up. "You think?"

He squinted at her. "Is it...going to be a dagger?" he asked hesitantly. Astrid shot him a sideways grin. He'd been wanting a dagger for ages — a small weapon with iron in it would be perfect for him, for feeling safer with the fey — and he'd let it slip once around her.

"Well," she said slowly, "it could be. Maybe for your next birthday?"

He gave her a bemused look. "That's months off."

"If never hurts to be prepared."

He fell silent and lowered his head, smiling to himself, tapping his pencil against his paper. For a few moments, there was only the sounds of Astrid shuffling around.

Hiccup cleared his throat. "Hey, Astrid?"

As she lined up metal against the ruler, she glanced up at him. "Hm?"

Unsure of how to begin, Hiccup wet his lips. "Remember…when we were younger, and you found out about my hallucinations?"

"Yeah?"

"And…you kept asking me if I was sure they were just from schizophrenia, if there wasn't some way they might real, like I had special powers or something?"

"Oh yeah," Astrid snorted fondly at the memory. "You told me before you met me that you used to think they were real, too, before your dad had you diagnosed."

"Yeah." Hiccup fell silent, remembering how Stoick had dragged him to see a psychiatrist, desperate for Hiccup not to succumb to his illness the same as his mother.

"What about it?" asked Astrid. She shoved the marker into her hair and set down the dagger pieces to stare at him, her eyes narrowed keenly.

He looked down at his hands, laying palms up on his legs, feeling as if they were lifeless. "I…" he began. How could he say this to her? He swallowed nervously and felt something blocking his throat. "I… I used to wish they were real, too."

He couldn't say it. It didn't feel right somehow. It didn't feel desperate enough, or truthful enough, or maybe real enough. Somehow he felt like he was the hallucination, and Astrid part of the real world to which he would never belong.

She was fiddling with her ruler, turning it over and over in her hands. "Hiccup..." Her voice was soft as dust in the stillness. "Is this...about your mom?" The question was tentative, unsure if it dared to be asked. Hiccup raised his eyes. Her expression was pained. "It's almost that time of the year," she said. "The anniversary since she...disappeared..."

Slowly, wearily, Hiccup shook his head. "No." His voice came out colorless and flat. "It's...I don't want to talk about it."

There was no sound.

Finally she cleared her throat. "Okay," she said. "Just...remember I'm here if you change your mind." She picked up her tool and began measuring a slat of wood, marking the places she wanted to cut for the handle, careful with the way she angled her marker. Hiccup began twirling his pencil between his fingers again. Simple as breathing, they brushed off the painful moments and went back to the standard pattern of their lives.

"So anyway," Astrid said. "About our Halloween plans..."


	5. Thread

Hiccup found out that he had a good reason to feel anxious the next night.

Night had already descended on Berk, and Hiccup was up late in his room, pouring over stacks of papers spread out on his desk, studying by the light of a single lamp as he tried to catch up on homework. Toothless slept on his feet.

_Tap. Tap. Tap. _The sound of knuckles against glass.

Hiccup's pencil froze in his fingers, mid-spin. His eyes flicked to the curtains, laying motionless and unrevealing, and he remained fixed to his chair. Only one person who would show up at Hiccup's window at night, and he really didn't want to let that person in.

The tapping died out. Instead, only the soft thump of something hitting the side of the house, then...silence.

He waited for Jack to get annoyed and start rapping the window more aggressively.

Nothing.

Unease ballooned in his chest. His breathing was ragged in the sudden stillness, and the heavy curtains didn't stir, concealing whatever it was from Hiccup's desperate eyes. He shoved his hair out of his face.

The curtains dragged through his fingers as he wrenched them back. "This is getting really old," he hissed as he shoved open the window. "I thought I told you to leave me alo— AAAAAAAAAAAHH!"

Jack, who was propped up against the side of the house, sagged against the frame as soon as Hiccup opened the window. He looked ghastly, his skin a starker white than usual, mouth hanging slack, eyes half closed and almost drowsy. His breathing was labored and unnatural; he was forcing himself to take even, controlled breaths, and it felt _wrong_. A dark smear ran up the side of his face and into his hair, staining the pale strands.

There was the sound of footsteps downstairs. "Hiccup?" called Stoick's muffled voice. "Are ye alright?"

"What?" Hiccup panicked and smacked one hand over Jack's mouth, which was useless. Jack wasn't saying anything. He just gazed at Hiccup, helpless and waiting to see what Hiccup would do. "Yeah, I'm fine!" Hiccup called.

"I heard a yell."

"Uhhhh…" Hiccup blanched. "Toothless startled me."

Jack's breath was freezing against Hiccup's palm, his eyes fearful and wide over Hiccup's fingers. Both of them were still.

Downstairs, Stoick chuckled. "Oh, alright." The sound of creaking footsteps faded away downstairs again.

Hiccup buried his face in his hands. "Ooooh god, you're bleeding," he groaned. The tunic that Jack wore was soaked in red, and Jack had one hand clamped to his side over the stain. Hiccup lowered both hands and reached out to prop Jack up. "What happened?"

Jack's eye lids fluttered. He caught Hiccup's eyes and a reckless half-smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Aw, you do care."

"Shut up." Hiccup flapped his anxious hands at Jack. "What's wrong with you?"

Jack's smile faded. "I'm bleeding."

"I can _see_ that." Hiccup forced the window open the rest of the way and tried to maneuver Jack in. "But…why…?"

"Didn't know where else to go." Jack's head dropped. He wouldn't meet Hiccup's eyes.

"Where else to go for what?" Hiccup managed to heave Jack in through the window, dragging his limbs over the frame with only minimal metal-burns, and got one arm around Jack's ribs cage to support him.

Jack leaned against him. His hand, slung around Hiccup's shoulders, grasped uselessly at Hiccup's shirt as he struggled to stand. He was slipping, his breathing coming faster in desperate pants.

"For help," Jack mumbled in Hiccup's ear, so quiet that it took Hiccup a moment to realize Jack had spoken. With a sigh of resignation, he heaved Jack onto his mattress. Jack collapsed onto it in a flurry of loose limbs, face down.

"Are you dying?" The words caught up in Hiccup's throat, more pained than he wanted them to be, but there was no way to snatch them back in again. "Why aren't you healing? I know you can heal fast."

"Iron," Jack grunted, and Hiccup felt all the air go out of his lungs. He understood what that meant.

But he didn't move. His arms wrapped around him, fingers digging into his sides, as he stood still, staring down at dark red smears across his sheets. He still knew that it would be dangerous to get involved with the fey — _any_ fey. But was it already too late? Jack was here, in his house, in his _room_, bleeding out on his bed, and Hiccup still worried about staying a secret. He wrenched his gaze away from Jack. This wasn't safe. Even as much as he wanted to know… his eyes found their way back to Jack.

Jack's expression contorted as he shift into a better position for his wounded side. Hiccup's anxiety left him in a rushed sigh, and, unconsciously, he found himself in the bathroom a few moments later going through the cabinets. "Rubbing alcohol...no…lysol...no," he muttered to himself as he rummaged. "…ah! Iodine." He gathered the rest of his supplies and bolted back to his room.

Jack had made it onto his side, but now he lay still, half curled up in the fetal position, eyes shut. Hiccup dumped everything on the floor and knelt by the bed. He peeled up Jack's tunic to examine the wound, and Jack's eyes flew open.

"Ow," he said stupidly. He focused on Hiccup. "What exactly are you doing?"

"I'm going to help. Stop squirming." A deep gash wrapped halfway around Jack's rib cage. Hiccup dabbed at it with an old washcloth. It wasn't as deep as he'd feared, but it looked like it'd been bleeding for a while, and it was still deeper than would allow it to heal. He splashed some iodine on it.

Jack let out a hiss, then a sigh of relief. "Wow. It's better already."

Hiccup finished cleaning it in silence, frustrated as it continued to leak blood. "I think I'm going to have to sew it up."

"What!" Jack shot up and immediately let out a grunt of pain. "You can't give a faery stitches! The needle is made of metal!"

Hiccup shoved him back down. "Well, the thread isn't, so the burn won't be permanent."

"No."

"It won't heal otherwise!"

Jack eyed him. "I'm not doing it."

Hiccup's expression grew hard as he stared at Jack. This damn faery wanted his help, and he was getting it whether he changed his mind or no. "How would you have fixed this without me?" he pressed. "What would you have done?"

Blood was seeping into the fabric of the sheets but neither of them paid it any attention. Jack turned his face away from Hiccup, pressing it into the mattress. "Would have just waited for it to heal," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. "It's not like it can kill me."

Hiccup ignored that remark; he didn't know if that last bit was true or not, but with iron poisoning it, the wound would never heal. He moved Jack's arm out of the way and peeled off the ratty, bloody tunic. Jack let him do it in silence, moving so that Hiccup could pull the tunic over his head. The tunic looked too ragged to save, so Hiccup just balled it up and left it on the floor. He absorbed more blood out of the wound, cleaned it again, and strung the needle.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

"No," Jack grouched. "You could at least get me drunk first. Do you have any whiskey?"

"I'm not giving you anything. Alcohol's a blood thinner." He paused. "I don't think we have any, anyway."

"Fine," Jack muttered.

He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth as Hiccup pressed the sides of the wound together. Hiccup paused; he'd never had to sew anyone up. The edges of the wound were grayish where the skin had begun to die, but it was still dark crimson inside, still warm and seeping liquid. Hiccup felt light-headed for a moment and took a deep, steadying breath. He could do this.

"You alright?"

Hiccup hadn't even realized that Jack was still watching him. He set his jaw. "I'm fine," he forced out. "Are you ready?"

Jack just nodded. Hiccup stabbed the needle through before he could change his mind, steeling himself to catch up both sides of the skin with the thread, ignoring the strange _pop!_ that the needle made as it punctured. He froze when Jack hissed and seized up.

"It's fine, it's fine," said Jack through clenched teeth. "Sorry. I'll hold still." His face was bloodless white.

Hiccup pressed his lips into a thin line and will his hands not to shake as he forced himself to continue. The thread tugged at the skin as the needle went through and he tightened the stitch. He knotted off every stitch as he went along, uncertain of what he was doing but compelled to make sure it wouldn't come apart. Jack was tense under his hands, but he didn't jolt anymore as the metal bit through his skin, sizzling faintly every time. It was slow work. The wood floors, cold and hard, dug into his kneecaps as he knelt there.

A hand came to rest against the nape of Hiccup's neck, fingers tangling in the hairs there. Hiccup went rigid on instinct. Jack had his hand in his hair while his other hand was tucked under his body. As Hiccup stared at him, his eyes slid open and he stared back.

"Sorry," he said. His hand slid free.

Hiccup stabbed the next stitch through with more force than necessary.

"What's it like being fey?" he asked, to distract both himself and Jack. He knotted off the thread.

"Ow…what? I don't know. What's it like being human?"

That made Hiccup pause. "Stressful," he said finally. He chewed on his lips some more, eyes darting between Jack's face and his wound before ducking his head.

"Is it true about the name thing?" he dared to ask at last. His brow furrowed.

"Name thing?"

"Yeah. You know…" He leaned in closer and lowered his voice without knowing why, his face turned toward Jack's as if he were trying to soak up an aura of magic around him, trying to imbibe a little of it. "Can I order you around if I know your true name?" The question came out a hushed secret, greedy to be asked, adrenaline-fueled in his nervousness.

Jack turned to press his face into the blankets, but Hiccup saw the smirk. "It's more complicated than that, but…yes. I would be unable to refuse anything you ask of me."

"Complicated how?" Hiccup had an idea. "Do you owe me a — uh, what's it called — a boon for this?"

Minutes of silence went past filled with Hiccup's heartbeat in his ears, his breath too-controlled.

"I…suppose…" Jack allowed with a suspicious squint. "Why?"

"Just wondering," said Hiccup quickly. "…what kind of boon?"

A bit of blood leaked out between the stitches and Hiccup dabbed it away.

"I haven't decided yet." Jack's voice came out sounding half strangled. Hiccup felt a stab of triumph at being able to get Jack all wrong-footed. He darted a glance at Jack and saw that Jack was looking alarmed.

"You get to decide? Is that a magic thing or a social thing? What else is true about the fair folk?" He blurted out.

"Such curiosity," Jack taunted. "What's it to you?"

Hiccup felt his face heat up; he'd gone red. He lowered his eyes and stabbed the needle in for the next stitch, watching the metal point disappear into the cold white flesh and leave behind a red mark that faded into white at once. "You're almost done," he mumbled over Jack's ensuing gasp of pain.

"Thank the gods." Jack rolled his head to look at Hiccup again. "You changed the subject. I thought you didn't want anything to do with us. Does this mean you've changed your mind?"

A gust of wind blew through the still-open window, setting the curtains fluttering, sweeping around the cool room. Hiccup found himself sitting back with his hands palm up on his knees as he stared at them, with their too-human veins and creases. The needle dangled, abandoned, from Jack's side. It swayed in the breeze, and a tiny feather of frost formed over the metal.

"I can't," Hiccup croaked. He coughed to clear his throat. "My dad would have a panic attack if I started acting weird again. Astrid would worry. My schoolwork… I have to focus on school. I don't want to be sent back to therapy. Everybody will think I'm crazy again." Bitter, he rolled the needle between his fingertips.

Jack let out a slow sigh. "Again?" he echoed softly.

Hiccup didn't answer. He put in two more stitches, tied them off, and bit off the thread. "Okay, you're done." He ran a fingertip lightly across the stitches and leaned back to examine his work. "Not too bad, if I say so myself. Hey…" He frowned as his finger wandered from the stitches to another long scar across Jack's ribs. "What's this? There's another scar. There's…there's tons of scars. Why do you have so many scars?" Now that he was actually paying attention, layers of long, twisted white lines marred Jack's torso everywhere.

"I'm old," Jack said, rolling himself partly up in the blanket to hide his torso. "A man my age is entitled to his scars."

"Those all look like cuts to me," Hiccup snapped. "Did someone do this to you?"

Jack brushed off his questions. "You said I'm done. I'll take my shirt back now."

Hiccup narrowed his eyes at him. "Fine." He stood up and rummaged through his dresser for an old t-shirt and hoodie of his, which he tossed at Jack's face. Jack was sitting up, clumsily taping a piece of gauze over his side.

"So I don't leak," he explained sheepishly. He plucked up the bright blue hoodie and held it up. "You…you know I don't get cold, right?"

After several weeks of pretending not to notice the trail of ice that Jack left wherever he went, Hiccup was certain that was not the problem. "Would you just put it on?"

With a shrug, Jack shook it out. He struggled to pull on the shirt and hoodie without pulling at his stitches until Hiccup took pity on him, helping him get his arms through the holes. "Thanks." He rubbed at one eye and let out an exhausted sigh, slumping against Hiccup's chest. His voice became muffled in Hiccup's shirt.

Hiccup froze, hands halfway raised, unsure of what to do with himself. If it had been Astrid, he would have patted her consolingly, but he'd known her for years. His hands hovered toward Jack's head. He stopped. Flexed his fingers. Put his hands on Jack's shoulders instead. "Ooooohkay, so..." He cleared his throat.. "You should take ibuprofen or something. Wait, no, that's a blood thinner. That's probably not a good idea."

"Okay," Jack mumbled.

Hiccup stood staring at the top of Jack's head for a minute. "Stay here. I'm going to clean this stuff up."

"Mm-hmm."

He pushed Jack gently off and went to pick up the pile of bloody tissues and gauze from the floor, gathered the ruined tunic, and crept downstairs with it all bundled it under one arm. He stuck his head in the living room. Stoick was sitting on the couch in front of the tv, sound asleep and snoring with each inhale. The coast was clear for Hiccup to run out back and throw everything into the big trash can, where hopefully no one would notice or think anything of it.

When he made it back to his room, Jack lay curled up on his bed, wrapped up in the blue hoodie — which already had the beginnings of delicate frost patterns creeping across the fabric — fast asleep with one of his blankets hitched halfway across his legs. His feathery white hair was spread out, catching the moonlight that spilled through the still-open window and set it aglow. The soft rise and fall of his chest with each _inhale, exhale_, the vulnerable and innocent expression on his face, was disarming, alarmingly docile.

Hiccup stared down at him. "Oh no," he whispered. "You're not supposed to sleep here." But he couldn't bring himself to rouse Jack and kick him out. He hovered for several minutes, trying to force himself to shake the fey boy awake, but finally gave up and just crawled over him.

"Don't hog the covers," he muttered to Jack's sleeping form as he tried to get comfortable. Toothless leapt from the desk and curled up between them, as if this wasn't weird at all.

"Why are you okay with this?" Hiccup asked him. Toothless just blinked his big green eyes at him. "Whatever," Hiccup retorted. He gave Jack one last glare, but his expression softened at the contented look on his face. He hated himself for it. "I'm still kicking you out in the morning," he whispered to him. He curled up and closed his eyes.

* * *

_Jack, kneeling on the floor, didn't feel the harsh rock digging into his kneecaps, didn't feel the cold or smelled the putrid rot that clogged the air. The sharp reek of blood in his nostrils, sat heavy in the back of his throat. The stench of burned flesh, bitter, made him light-headed. He couldn't think through the burning in his sides. Realizing the need to show weakness if he was ever going to find relief, he had finally let himself collapse, dragging air into his lungs with ragged hiss-noises, gasps wet and guttural. _

_Pitch loomed cold on the throne, watching Jack's slow and agonized decline, watching him bleed and collapse, watching him take those low-rattling breaths that Jack, wounded as he was, no longer had to fake. And Pitch's eyes, so flat and unfeeling. _

_"That is…enough." _

_Jack didn't let the relief that flooded him show on his face, remaining stoic on the floor, still half groveling in his attempt to lessen his own punishment. Slow, with biting regret, he gathered himself back together. Drawing in all his limbs, leaving dark streaks on the smooth stone beneath him, he sat up, one arm wrapped around his side where he'd cut himself too deeply. _

_Ranks upon ranks of court fey with blanks expressions surrounded him, veiled in shadows, barely visible and swimming in the gloom, indifferent to his punishment. And before him, the flash of his master's eyes._

_"Stand up." _

_With staggering sluggishness, Jack got to his feet. He made such a sight, drawn to his full height, blood still streaming from his side underneath his clutching hand, standing in the middle of the bloodstains, the smeared blade still on the floor. His eyes, still gleaming fires in his endless aching sockets. His teeth, gritted and grinding behind his pinched mouth. He did not dare to glare at his master. _

_Pitch's voice rasped out for the whole court to hear. "No fey in any province is to rend this one any assistance." The echoing silence that came after could have swallowed any promises. Pitch leveled his gaze at Jack. "Go," he ordered. The scrape of his voice barely made it to Jack's ears. "Return in three days. I hope, for your sake, that you will have an appropriate sacrifice by then." _

_Jack, all stiffness and concealed struggling, contorted himself into a bow of acquiescence. Then, he'd turned to leave. Slow, dogged steps carried him, shaky but standing tall, through the ranks of the witnessing courtiers, down the length of the great hall. He'd waited until he was past every one of them, until he reached the uneasy wooden doors that led out, before he let a slow smile unfurl on his face. _

_'I hope you will have a sacrifice by then' …was not a direct order. _

_That monstrous grin stretched his blood-smeared face as he limped the long way back to Berk, gleeful and obsessed with that leeway in words, that small, possible escape window._

* * *

As it turned out, Hiccup had no need to kick Jack out. When he woke up the next morning, it was to streaming sunlight, a closed window, a warm room, and a bed empty of anything except himself and his cat. He sat up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. There was no sign that anything out of the ordinary had happened in Hiccup's room.

"What…?" He threw his legs over the edge of the bed and approached the window. There - glittering ghost-like in the sunlight, but definitely there - was a thin swatch of frost on the glass pane, with one word etched in it.

_Sorry_.

His heart sank. He didn't know why he was disappointed.


	6. Limbo

Jack left Hiccup alone. Sometimes, Hiccup would catch a glimpse of him, sitting on a far-off rooftop, framed against the pale blue sky, and he would press his face against the car window or stare out the window at school. Jack never approached, never got close enough to speak. It was supposed to be a relief for Hiccup. He tried not to be bothered by it, but sometimes he still found himself glancing over his shoulder, waiting for him to appear.

Thursday he went back to the library, not to work, but for his own research. He slipped in unnoticed while the librarian was preoccupied with a patron and scooted into the stacks. The tips of his fingers passed across the book spines, searching out the numbers that told him where he was, and he followed them, looking for the 290's.

Folklore and Mythologies.

There was no way to check the books out while avoiding the librarian, so he snuck out the back door without doing it, an armload of historical mythologies tucked under his arm. He hadn't told Astrid what he was doing, so she wasn't there to drive him home. He kept his arms clamped around the books the whole bus ride back and carried them himself, all the way to his front door, feeling like a criminal. Truthfully, it wasn't a big deal — it wasn't like he wasn't planning to return them or anything, but he still hoped his boss wouldn't fire him. He hoped she wouldn't find out in the first place.

It was late afternoon, the glowing sunlight fading into dusk. He spread out across the dining room table, probing through the books one at a time. Anything he could learn about the fey, he thought, would be helpful in protecting him against them, and since Jack wasn't forthcoming, he was left to his own devices. That's what he told himself as he lifted the cover of the first book and turned over the pages. He didn't think about how he'd always been curious about them, didn't think about how his eyes were always drawn their way, or how he dragged his feet and had to bite his tongue when he passed them hanging out in mortal areas.

He got lost between the pages, devouring all the information until the world around him faded away.

"Hiccup! How was school today?"

He jumped and looked around wildly. Stoick had come in and was hanging his jacket up on the pegs by the front door, still covered in the dust and grease that came with working in a garage.

"Oh…hey dad." Hiccup fumbled. "I didn't realize you would be home yet."

"Mm." Stoick rubbed one eye tiredly. "Slow day. What…" he lowered his hand, narrowing his eyes at the books spread across the table. "…What are those?"

Hiccup glanced at the books, several of which showed their titles clearly in big bold letters. "Books," he said uneasily.

Hiccup surreptitiously tried to cover up the obvious titles as Stoick leaned over to peer at them. "About?" he asked, his voice thick with suspicion.

"Nothing?"

"Hiccup," said Stoick, growing more accusatory by the second. "Why does this say Fairy Myths of Ancient Ireland?!"

Hiccup scrambled. "School project!" He blurted out without thinking and immediately cringed.

Stoick's hand came down on the table without warning, making it rattle and landing on several books. "This is about your hallucinations, isn't it?!" He growled in frustration. "You're seeing things again! I knew something was going on!"

"Dad, don't—"

"Why can't you just be honest with me? Just once!"

That was unfair. Hiccup ignored the stab of hurt that went through him and plunged on. "I'm just reading!"

But Stoick wasn't listening — he never did. He was in full rant mode now, fingers pointing aggressively at Hiccup with each accusation. "You haven't been taking your medications, you've been lying about your hallucinations—"

"Would you just listen once—"

"How am I supposed to believe anything you say?!" Stoick growled, cutting Hiccup off.

Hiccup cringed, gathering the books in closer to him, away from Stoick's furious hands. "Dad, it's not a big issue! Nothing is happening!"

"No, you're wrong." The anger that colored Stoick's voice grew darker. "You have to go back to Dr. Gothi, you need to take your medications."

Hiccup cracked. "No!" he shouted, leaping to his feet. Several books slid off the table and hit the floor, but neither of them took any note. "I don't want to go back to therapy! I hate it! Stop acting like you understand what's going on with me! I am fine!"

Stoick roared back at him. "You're seeing things!"

"THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ME!" The words poured out of Hiccup in a torrent, breaking free, and Hiccup couldn't stop them. "Nothing is going to happen! You always act like you know what I'm going through, but you don't! You don't get it, dad!"

Stoick flinched back, but he didn't stop. "This is just like—"

"Just like WHAT, dad?!" At his sides, Hiccups hands clenched into outraged fists. "Just like what?!"

"LIKE YOUR MOTHER."

The rage, all the anger that had been building up for years and finally come pouring out, suddenly drained out of Hiccup in a cold inhalation of breath. It was like he'd been punched. He stared at Stoick. "…what," he breathed into the ensuing silence.

Stoick averted his eyes, his mouth pinched up behind his beard as he lowered his gaze and his eyes darted around the room. For a moment he said nothing. "The same thing was happening with her," he said at last, in a low voice. "And then she disappeared."

Somewhere inside himself, Hiccup cobbled together the wreckage of his thoughts and made a question of them. It came out slow, wounded, wavering."You think…her hallucinations killed her?"

Stoick didn't answer. He still didn't look at Hiccup, but Hiccup couldn't look away.

"Dad?"

Stoick's brow furrowed. He bent to collect up the library books and set them on the table with the other ones, picking them all up, shutting their covers, piling them into a neat stack. They looked small in his huge hands. "I'm returning these library books tomorrow. And you are going back to Dr. Gothi as soon as her next available appointment." Without another word, he tucked the books under one arm and left the room, leaving Hiccup gaping after him. Hiccup listened, unable to move, as Stoick's heavy footsteps ascended the stairs and Stoick shut himself in his room.


	7. How Jackson Became A Fae Fugitive

The last time Jack was at court was a ghastly memory, a horrible blotch in his mind, filled with blood, pain, and darkness. This time, the court was an explosion of sound, color, and other happy things. The feasts leading up to Samhain had begun.

The enormous wooden doors were wide open, so that he heard the revelry a long time before he saw it. The great hall was filled to bursting with fair folk of every kind and color. Long tables were set up, overflowing with food and drink. He passed a bowl filled with a glittering golden liquid that smelled like salt and rust before ducking under the elbow of a tall elf who was drinking a bowl of something deep purple. The elf's mouth was stained dark. Jack scurried past him and picked up a ghost apple off a platter. It smelled like sticky, overpowering perfume when he sniffed it. He put it back, his stomach tightening.

He knew he shouldn't be dawdling. He had to go, to meet the order of his master. He knew what was coming, but he was already resigned to it, ready to accept the pain that would be dealt to him for slipping around an implied order.

He shoved his hands into the pocket of his new hoodie as he turned toward the further end of the hall, where Pitch still sat on his twisted throne, surrounded now by folk vying for his favor. Jack dodged and dipped his way through throngs of rowdy fey, careful to edge out of anyone's notice.

"Ah," said Pitch, taking notice of him as he approached the throne. His eyes barely flickered away from the graceful fey woman dancing in front of him. Her feet slipped around a bit as she moved; the floor was slick with blood. Jack didn't want to know where it came from, whose it was, if his own would soon add to it. "The prodigal son returns."

Pitch seemed in a good humor, his face — illuminated this time by the plethora of lanterns growing down from the ceiling — twisted into a wry smile. His chin was propped lazily on one hand.

Jack lurched into a deep bow. "As ordered."

"Yes, yes, of course." Pitch waved a dismissive hand at him. "I'll hear from you shortly. Go enjoy the feast or something."

Jack managed another stiff bow before backing away, keeping his confusion hidden away behind a flat mask. The eyes of the dancing fairy girl flicked toward him as he left, and though the smile plastered on her face didn't slip, there was something in her gaze that screamed for help. Jack suppressed a shiver and turned away.

He wandered through the revelers once again, not sure what to do with himself, certain that Pitch's dismissal had only postponed the inevitable.

He caught a glimpse of something golden and shifting through the crowd and followed it, pushing through the rowdy, writhing fey. He wasn't a small person but in such a crowd it was nonetheless hard for him not to be crushed underfoot.

"Sandy!" he called, trying to work his way over to the golden man. Sandy heard and turned toward him, but before Jack could reach him, a cold hand gripped his arm. Jack's head jerked up. A fearling towered over him, its glittering eyes peering down at him through its own shadows. Too late, Jack realized the fey around him had cleared away, leaving him in a circle of empty space.

"His Most High Monstrosity will hear you now," said the fearling in a hollow voice. It released Jack and turned to glide through the crowd, which parted silently before it. Jack swallowed down his own unease and padded after it, ignoring the eyes of the others that followed him.

Sandy saw the whole thing. He darted through the legs of the crowding fey after Jack, watching. Worry twisted his stomach and warned him that something bad was about to happen — but he didn't have to words to say what.

Pitch was chuckling at something of the nobles was saying. As Jack approached, he waved the noble back with a lazy hand. Jack stepped forward and bowed deep before the throne.

"So," said Pitch, still wearing his slippery smile. "The prodigal son returns to us."

"As ordered." Jack straightened.

"Yes, yes," said Pitch. Then he raised his voice. "Everyone!" To Jack's horror, Pitch rose from the throne and descended the steps, motioning toward him for the benefit of the court. "May I present Jack, The Guardian of Berk, who suffers among the humans for my sake. Applaud his efforts, for he is the provider of our main entertainment this Samhain. He has brought the sacrifice for our celebration!"

The nobles, surrounding Jack and Pitch at a safe distance, put their hands together, and many of the other watching faeries cheered. Jack went stiff.

"So." Pitch's voice was softer this time, closer to Jack. "Where is this sacrifice?" His yellow eyes glinted.

Jack gripped his hands into fists. Without meaning to, he shoved them into his hoodie pocket for comfort, grateful for the soft fabric. He could almost imagine it was still warm from Hiccup. "I don't have it," Jack bit out, determined not to be a coward. He could feel Pitch at his back, but he didn't dare turn around.

Pitch stilled. "What?" he hissed. "I didn't quite catch that."

"I said, I don't HAVE IT!"

Jack spun around to glare at Pitch, and his eyes narrowed into angry slits. The watching crowd fell silent, holding its collective breath in horror or anticipation.

Pitch's face froze, livid. He reached out with his long fingers and seized Jack by the collar, pulling him slowly forward. "You. Don't. Have. It?!" he seethed, practically spitting with each word. "You have failed me again?!" The shadows around Pitch began to writhe, and fearlings manifested around them, appearing out of the crowd like smoke and sending terrified faeries reeling away. Cold dread seeped into Jack. Pitch was lifting him almost off the ground, hauling him up by his hoodie, towering over him as he nearly choked him, taking a deep breath as he prepared to destroy Jack—

Then it stopped. As suddenly as ice shattering. Pitch just froze. His eyes raked over Jack, a strange expression stealing over his stoney face, and he leaned back. "Well," he said thoughtfully, "you still have a week." With a cruel smile, he dropped Jack on the floor. "Get out of my sight."

Jack didn't waste any time. Stumbling, he got to his feet, fled the throne, and disappeared into the crowd.

When he stopped running, he was almost at the opposite side of the hall, tucked into a natural alcove in the wall, breathing hard. His heart hammered. His wild eyes scanned the crowd, watching for fearlings or even Pitch himself coming after him to kill him, but there were only partying faeries. The sound of revelry washed over him. Slowly, he calmed.

Sandy appeared. He picked his way over to Jack, waving frantically at him.

"Sandy!" Jack let out a relieved gasp. "I saw you earlier! I was coming to talk to you." Sandy was making signs at Jack, his hands moving fast enough to blur, but Jack kept talking over him, babbling. "I didn't bring the sacrifice for Pitch, but he didn't punish me. He just let me go. I don't understand it. I don't understand."

Sandy tugged on his arm.

"Ow, what—"

Sandy pointed.

A flood of fearlings, a whole hoard, were pouring out of the open doorways of the great hall. A hellish army meant for terror — and retrieval.

_They're going for Berk_, Sandy signed. _I heard Pitch give them the order. He didn't see me, but I was watching._

"I have to go!" Jack leapt to his feet and sped toward the door, wishing for a quick wind but he has only his own feet under the earth.

_Áwærest déaþscúa_, signed Sandy, but Jack was already gone. _Be safe._


	8. There are Faeries in McDonalds

The day after Hiccup and Stoick fought was awkward. They didn't say a word to each other. Hiccup just sat at the table doodling in his sketchbook while Stoick microwaved a tv dinner in silence.

Hiccup couldn't concentrate. He kept glancing at his father out of the corner of his eye, trying to work out what to say, wondering if he should apologize.

After a while, he just gathered all his drawings up and retreated to his room, but still he couldn't focus on anything. He just sat at his desk twirling his pencil around and around between his fingers — _fwip fwip fwip_ — and zoning out while he stared down at his wrinkled sketch paper.

He slammed his sketchbook shut and got up. It was late anyway.

In his nightstand drawer lay the pill organizer where he kept his anti-psychotics. He took the pill out of this week's "friday" slot and tucked it into his palm.

The night air was cool, and it woke him up as he climbed out his bedroom window onto the first story roof. He wound back his arm and chucked the pill as far as he could. It landed somewhere in the driveway gravel.

The roof shingles were scratchy, but he sat, leaned against the wall, tucked his knees up and dangled his arms across them. Toothless oozed himself over the windowsill and curled up against Hiccup's hip.

It was quiet and peaceful. The sky was swollen with dark, low clouds; the air felt heavy and smelled of a storm. The silhouettes of houses and pine trees were black against a cloudy grey. He stared out at them without seeing. He felt bad for making his dad worry, but he couldn't talk to him about what was happening with the fey — with Jack. He could tell Astrid, but she couldn't help. She'd just ask if he was taking his medication or if he wanted to go back to therapy. God, he wished he could tell her the truth. All of it. About the faeries, about Jack, about the pills that he never actually took. But he couldn't talk about everything to her.

He could only talk about Jack with… Jack.

That was the worst part. Where was Jack? Off avoiding him somewhere.

It grew darker. The street lamps came on. There was a dark shape drifting over the rooftops, a bird or a bat of some sort, and Hiccup stared off into space at it, watching it with half his attention.

He frowned. It didn't look right for a bird or a bat, and it was getting larger, almost like it was coming closer, coming straight toward him. It dipped, scraping low over a house, and bounced off again.

_Oh no_, Hiccup thought. He knew that shape.

And in a moment, he heard it, too. Jack was shrieking and waving his arms desperately as he hurtled toward Hiccup across the rooftops, coming from the direction of the forest. Hiccup leapt to his feet in alarm, feeling around behind him for his open window.

Jack was close enough that Hiccup could make out what he was saying.

"He's coming! They're coming," he was yelling. He motioned Hiccup to move. "Go! Around this way! Come on!"

"Jack!" Hiccup yelled, before remembering that human people could hear him. He tried to communicate 'what the hell' with his face. The tone of Jack's voice had him spooked, and without even thinking about it, he obeyed the directions that Jack was waving at him, running along the roof shingles to match pace with Jack as Jack sped toward him. "What's going on?!"

Jack scooped him up before Hiccup could realize what was happening. They zipped across the rooftops. Behind them, Toothless let out an unhappy yowl and paced the edge of the roof, looking for a way down.

"What are you doing?!" Hiccup yelled in Jack's ear, clinging onto Jack for dear life. He couldn't even see the ground below, just a blur of shingles and lamplight circles and asphalt. "No, Jack, your side!"

"It's fine," Jack gritted. "Just hold on."

But Hiccup could hear the way his breath was coming too fast. "What's happening?!"

"It's Pitch!" said Jack. "My master!" He didn't say any more. Hiccup turned to look behind them and saw enormous shadows racing after them like tidal waves, swallowing up the bright window squares and pools of streetlamp light as they came. If he stared too hard they seemed to twist into shapes like arms and long fingers reaching out for them, snatching at their heels. He swallowed and looked away.

They were heading into town. Jack was faster than the shadows and slowly, they left the twisting dark shapes behind until they were almost out of sight.

Everything was rushing past. It began to rain. There was a jolt, and Jack stumbled and half-dropped Hiccup; Hiccup found himself standing on something solid.

They were on the roof of some large building. The rain was coming down heavily now, turning into a storm, drumming so loudly on the rooftops that it drowned their voices. They were both soaked through.

"What happened?!" Hiccup yelled. He started to pace back and forth frantically, rubbing his arms against the chill. "What — what was that?"

"He knows about you!" Jack yelled back, blinking water out of his eyes. His hair was plastered to his head. "He figured it out when I went back!"

"Oh, is that where you've been! Why did you have to come back and kidnap me?!"

Jack looked ashamed. "You're… in danger. He's after you now. He'll be on the lookout for you."

"What?!" Hiccup couldn't believe this. "I'm… what about my father!? What about Astrid!? Does your _master_ know about them?"

"I don't know." Jack paused, and in the silence, the rain was louder than ever. "I'm sorry," he said at last, more quietly.

"This is exactly why I didn't want to have anything to do with you!" Hiccup yelled. "You barged into my life and you messed everything up! I've avoided the folk for years and you ruined my life!"

Jack took a nervous step back. "Haha… what life?" He tried humor, desperate to diffuse Hiccup's anger. It didn't work.

"No!" snapped Hiccup. "I had a life before you got here! A nice, calm, peaceful life! A life without fairies, or at least one that didn't have faeries like you fucking everything thing up at every turn!"

Jack was floundering. "But your Sight-"

"Nobody knew! I was left alone! That's all I've ever wanted: to be left alone!"

"THAT'S ALL I'VE EVER HAD!"

In the silence following Jack's burst, Hiccup jerked back in surprise, looking as if he'd been slapped.

"FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS, I—" Jack realized that he was yelling and stopped himself, sucking in a deep lungful of wet air. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, looking away. His expression was stripped raw, his mouth open as he breathed hard, feverish pink spots staining his cheeks.

"…you've been alone," breathed Hiccup, comprehension dawning over him.

"Nobody looks at me."

Hiccup couldn't looked away. He chewed his lip, annoyed that the longing that colored Jack's voice so closely echoed his own.

"I didn't want to ruin your life." Jack's voice was barely audible over the pummeling rain drops. "I just needed you." He winced. His face went still and he put a hand to his side. Then he lowered his head and Hiccup couldn't see his face at all. "Why do you hate the fey so much?"

He said it so quietly that it took Hiccup a moment to untangle the sounds.

"I-!" Hiccup started to blurt an answer but stuttered to a halt. Anguish squeezed his chest, and he stared at Jack. Jack was even paler than usual, so white he looked dead under the rainwater. How could Hiccup explain this? That it wasn't hatred in him, but terror mixed with want and bitterness? "I..." he said again, and swallowed. "I don't," he admitted, and it was the best thing he could make himself say.

Jack didn't answer. Thunder rumbled in the sky, rolling through the heavy clouds overhead.

Now that his fear and anger were draining out of him, Hiccup wasn't sure what to feel. He was confused, lost, and tired. He wished he could hold onto the anger for a little while longer; that, at least, had felt like it had a purpose. Now he didn't know what to do.

"We should find shelter," Hiccup said finally. "It's cold. And I want to know what's going on."

"Yeah," Jack agreed. He straightened up, his jaw set. "Come on."

He carried Hiccup down to the road in one leap. They were in the middle of town now, but the streets were unusually deserted. Toothless appeared as they were walking down the road, drenched and mewling with concern. Hiccup led their bedraggled little party to the only thing that was still open: a twenty-four hour McDonalds where he was able to buy something with change that he dug out of his jean pocket. The cashier didn't even blink when he ordered two hot chocolates. Hiccup collected them and went to a booth hidden behind the dining room partition, then pushed one of the drinks at Jack.

"Let me see your wound," he demanded.

Jack sulked. "It's fine," he said, mutinous, but when Hiccup continued to glare at him, he sighed and peeled up his hoodie and shirt.

His side was almost completely healed. Hiccup knelt and ran his fingers over where the cuts used to be, which were just reddish lines now, the stitches cut and half pulled out. "...were you picking at the stitches?"

"A little," admitted Jack. He pulled his shirt back down. "But, as you can see, it's fine. Stop hovering."

"I am not." Hiccup returned to his seat. Toothless leapt onto the booth seat next to him. Silence descended. Hiccup nursed his hot chocolate; after the cold rain outside it felt wonderful, warming him from the inside out. The first sip was just on the right side between hot and burning, and he felt it slide down his throat and pool in his stomach.

"So…" he said when Jack continued to sit in sullen silence. "You...needed me?"

"Eh, I already told you that," Jack said offhandedly. "I can't get my memories myself."

"That's not what you meant."

Jack studied the lid on his hot chocolate. "No. That's not what I meant."

Hiccup continued to watch him, but that was the only explanation he was going to get. He stifled a tired sigh.

"Who is Pitch?"

"My master," answered Jack at once. "He's the king of the fey court. He sent me here to Berk — well, banished, actually — and I didn't do something that he wanted me to do. So he punished me."

"You have a court?" Hiccup shook his head. "Nevermind, I'm not even surprised. What did you want you to do that you didn't?"

"It's not important." Jack pushed wet hair off his face and it stuck up in spikes all over.

"That's why you were being chased? By those shadow things?"

"They're called Fearlings. They're servitors for him." Jack's gaze shifted sideways. In the seat next to Hiccup, Toothless began to twitch the end of his tail, back and forth, keeping his eyes on Jack. "Pitch's punishment wasn't the shadows, it was the wounds you saw before."

Horror stole over Hiccup. "He _did that_ to you?!"

"Actually, he made me to it to myself."

Hiccup automatically found himself running his fingers over his forearm, feeling ghostly memories in his skin. He stuck his hands under his thighs to stop himself. "That's—" He'd gone pale, fumbling for words. "That's—" Everything was draining out of him — his nervousness, his confusion, his resentment — replaced a burning hot anger at Jack's master.

"The shadows," Jack went on, oblivious to Hiccup's weird reaction, "he actually sent… to look for you. He found out that you helped me."

"…oh." The anger was quickly building into a hatred. He'd been confused for days, thrown off by Jack's presence, but in the end it was an easy decision: he was going to free Jack no matter what it cost him. No one should be put through something like that.

"I'm sorry," said Jack. "That's my fault." He fell silent, picking at his cup lid with nubby fingernails, staring down at the table.

"No." Hiccup cleared his throat. "I'll help you get your memories back."

Jack's head came up. "What?"

"I said," Hiccup cleared his throat again, trying to be normal, "I'll help you. With your memories. Getting them back." He scowled ferociously to himself and muttered, "and maybe I'll kill Pitch, while I'm at it."

A brilliant grin lit up Jack's face. "Really?" He leapt up and swept into a bow. "Then I will owe you a great debt."

"Oh my god," Hiccup mumbled.

Jack laughed. He scooted back into his seat across from Hiccup. "Maybe not," he amended. "You can't kill him though."

"Why not?"

Jack was startled out of his laughter. "You're a mortal," he blurted. "And he's the immortal king of the unseelie court of the fey. He has legions at his command. You have a cat!"

Hiccup looked down at Toothless and patted him. "But he's a good cat."

Jack snorted. "Regardless."

"Hmph." Thoughtful, Hiccup turned and stared out the window. The rain was pelting down; outside of the glimmering puddles of light under the street lamps, everything was quiet and still. "The shadows are gone," he said in surprise. "I mean, the creature shadows — shadow creatures — you know what I mean. The Fearlings."

"Ooh!" Jack leapt up and pressed his face against the glass. "You're right; they've withdrawn!"

"Good." Hiccup stood, scraping his chair back from the table, and zipped up his jacket. He picked up Toothless, who was still as damp as he was, and tucked him under his arm. Hiccup was tired, wet, and burnt out from feeling so much in a short amount of time. The dusty analog clock over the glass lobby doors told him it was getting near midnight, too. He headed outside.

"Where are you going?" Jack trailed anxiously after him.

"Home?"

"But—" Jack neatly dodged the swinging door as he ducked after Hiccup. "But we have to come up with a plan."

Hiccup dropped his empty paper cup into the trash can and let out a heavy breath that hung frostily in the air. "What, now?" He cast Jack a sideways look.

"Er…" Jack shifted back on his feet, worrying his tongue between his teeth.

Hiccup shrugged his shoulders and yanked up his hood, preparing to duck out from under the overhang. "I'll let you in after I get home from work tomorrow. We can start then."

"Wait, in?" asked Jack, forgetting his nerves. He bounced on the balls of his feet, his hot chocolate clutched to his chest. "Into your house?"

"Yeah. If that's okay with you."

"It's fine," said Jack. "It's great." Standing there, with ice beginning to frost the concrete under his bare feet and cold rain all around, a really strange feeling grew in his belly. It took him a moment to figure out what it was: warmth. Then he worried there was something wrong with him. "Alrighty then," he said, groping after his wits. "I'll…see you at that time."

Hiccup glanced up curiously. "Where are you going?" After several weeks of being relentlessly shadowed by Jack, he couldn't believe that Jack suddenly had better things to do.

Jack was already stepping out into the rain, leaving wide, shimmering swaths of ice behind. He turned and look back at Hiccup. "I'm going to get something," he said. "Something to help." Then he leapt up into the air and was whisked away by a gust of wind.

"Okay…" Hiccup watched the sky in awe for a moment, until he became aware of Toothless struggling to get out from under his arm. He let go. Toothless plopped to the pavement, landing neatly on his feet, and crept around Hiccup. Hiccup glanced down at him; they exchanged a quizzical look.

"Let's go home, bud," said Hiccup wearily.


	9. Insidious, Infectious, Invasive

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Just a short quick update because I didn't realize it'd been so long since the last one, and also to let you know that more is coming! I have the next few scenes written and they just need updating. So, there's that.

I made a small mistake in the last chapter, where Hiccup says he'll let Jack in after he gets home from school. Since that was taking place on a Friday, Hiccup doesn't have school, so it should say work. Which is only relevant for people keeping track of the timeline, which…I'm totally sure…everybody…is…

Also, getting this deep into the fic has made me realize some other mistakes I've made. First, the memories aren't "hidden" as Jack said, implying that's why Hiccup needs to get them. Jack needs Hiccup because no fey can touch the memories, by Pitch's order, but Hiccup is no fey. The previous chapters have been fixed, but just know going forward.

* * *

Hiccup was soaked, stressed, and unhappy, and it was a long walk home from the 24-hour McDonalds. By the time he made it, his feet ached and all he wanted was to dry off and collapse into bed.

The front door was unlocked. After he struggled with the spare key for moment — accidentally unlocking, locking, and unlocking it again — it swung open with a low groan of rusty hinges.

It was a one a.m. house — still, dark, quiet — that welcomed Hiccup back with the sort of emptiness that comes with early-morning hours. Hiccup fumbled for the entryway light switch, but when it clicked under his cold fingers, no light came on. Everything remained dark. He stifled his annoyance and felt his way toward the coat closet for a flashlight.

The beam lit up dusty floorboard; Toothless turned his reflective eyes on the flashlight and then disappeared into the shadows. Hiccup headed toward the living room, trying all the lights — none worked. Standing in the center of the house, he swept the beam over ever thing. Even the clocks on the microwave and stove were dead.

"Great." His low grumble disturbed the oppressive silence. He turned the light toward the living room.

His breath caught in his throat and his knuckles gripping the flashlight went white with tension. A huge black shape occupied one of the living room chairs, swelling and sinking as if it were breathing.

It took Hiccup a moment to realize that it was just Stoick — no doubt he'd fallen asleep watching TV before the power went out. Hiccup's shoulders sagged.

But when he turned the light on his father's slumped form, it wasn't just Stoick. There were living shadows — creeping, oozing, writhing, thick black shadows — crawling all over him. They scattered under the harsh beam of the flashlight without even a whisper, but inside his head, Hiccup heard the echoes of screeching as they withdrew into the natural shadows of the house. Without them, Stoick was a ghastly bluish-white.

A shriek burst from Hiccup and he stumbled backward. The flashlight hit the floor and rolled away. With an unearthly yowl, Toothless shot away and vanished under the sofa.

Before anything else could happen, every light in the house came on, every switch that Hiccup had tried, and the microwave let out a long shrill beep that meant it had power again. Brightness flooded the house. Toothless crept out again and crawled onto Hiccup, sniffing at him to make sure he was alright.

Stoick was sitting up, looking around, blinking at Hiccup on the floor. "What are ye doin' on the floor?" he asked in sleepy surprise.

"Dad!" Hiccup almost let out a sob of relief as he staggered to his feet. "What happened?!"

Stoick peered at Hiccup. Even now, with his face fully illuminated, he still didn't look right. His skin was pale and his eyes were ringed with shadows. "What do ye mean?"

"You — you were just…" Hiccup's voice trailed away; he couldn't tell him. If he told Stoick what he'd just seen, Stoick would put him back in therapy. Hiccup's voice wavered and he cleared his throat weakly. "…you just look like you don't feel well."

"'M alright." Stoick pushed himself to his feet and stretched out his limbs. "Jus' fell asleep. But what are ye doin' down here? Thought you went to bed."

"The power went off." Desperate to look away from the nascent blackish veins that webbed Stoick's skin, Hiccup searched the floor for the flashlight and turned it off. "It just now came back on."

"Well," said Stoick. "I'm goin' to bed. And you should too."

"Yeah," said Hiccup, still struggling to be calm. "Goodnight."

_It was nothing, it was just nothing_, Hiccup told himself. He tried to shake off the uneasy feeling, but it lingered, following him around as he turned off all the lights again. As he turned his back on the dark downstairs and put his foot on the first stair, he heard a haunting laugh echo from elsewhere in the house. His blood froze. Goosebumps covered his neck. He didn't dare glance over his shoulder and he retreated to his room and fell asleep with all his lights on.


	10. You'll Be Fine

Hiccup tried — so desperately — to go back to his life as if everything was normal.

Stoick slipped in and out of lucidity. Sometimes he seemed completely normal, if a little tired and forgetful; other times, he was little more than a zombie, his eyes glazes, his face slack, the darkness lurking under his skin like a disease. During these periods he sat and stared off into space without seeing anything. He would say nothing to Hiccup outside of mumbled, distant responses. It was like talking to a robot, then; like Stoick knew the words, but not the meaning behind them. He just repeated.

Hiccup tried to talk Stoick out of these slumps, with no success.

Saturday morning was okay; when Hiccup woke up and stumbled downstairs, his father had already made break and was in a pleasant mood. He'd even forgotten about their fight. He served Hiccup bacon and pancakes and laughed at how sleepy Hiccup looked.

But by the time Hiccup returned home from the library that evening, Stoick was bad again, slouched in one of the kitchen chairs with his eyes peeled wide and unseeing.

"Dad?" Hiccup flicked the kitchen lights on. His heart sank into his stomach as he saw the washed-out expression on Stoick's face. "Dad? I'm home."

No answer.

"DAD!" In a rush of anger and panic, Hiccup slammed his hand down on the table, palm flat, and the resounding bang echoed through the tiny kitchen.

Stoick startled awake with a jerk. "Oh…" He rubbed at his eye with one hand. "I didn't notice ye, Hiccup. Just driftin' off, I guess."

He didn't say anything about Hiccup's sudden outburst. Had he even noticed?

Some of the horror that had been rising in Hiccup drained away as he let out a relieved sigh. At least he'd been able to pull Stoick out of it. He shook out his hand, which stung now, and scraped it through his hair, giving his father a tired smile. "Sorry."

"S'fine. But shouldn't ye be gettin' to work? It's Saturday, yea?" Stoick's eyes were bloodshot and shadowed, and his skin had a weird unhealthy, greyish tint.

Hiccup swallowed and moved his eyes away. "It's a little later than that, Dad. I just got back from work."

With a flat chuckle, Stoick stood up. "Must've lost track of time."

Hiccup just nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Toothless, sensing Hiccups distress as he wound around Hiccup's ankles, mewed and places a paw on his knee.

Stoick didn't get better the next day.

The next day, Hiccup escaped the house before he could run into his father and confront what was wrong with him. He was grateful to go back to his volunteer work at the library, grateful to get out of his silent, hollow-feeling house into a place filled with a more sacred type of quiet.

The familiar sorting, piling, and stacking of books comforted and soothed Hiccup. He buried himself in the task. In the solid weight of them in his hands. The dull thud they made when he dropped them into piles. The _ca-thunk_ when he slid them into the shelves. The smell of old pages and dust. Hiccup took a deep breath in, and back out, letting his worry drain out of him.

His mind drifted, so it took him a while to notice that the library fey were watching him.

A small row of pixies gathered on a shelf high overhead, their little legs swinging off the ledge, their whispering voices like faint silver bells as they leaned forward to watch him. Several willow-the-wisps drifted out from between the books to peer at him before they disappeared again. A short, fat creature like a toad watched him from the shadows at the end of the stack, its eyes glimmering.

It was a new level of watchfulness that the fey have never had for him before, and it was unnerving. The skin on the back of his neck prickled and his hands went cold as he struggled to stay calm, sliding books onto shelves like he hadn't noticed them. He wished Astrid could've been there to keep him company, but she'd probably wait a couple more week before trying to sneak in with him again.

At the end of his shift he got a surprise, a surprisingly pleasant one.

From where he was, sequestered in the back of the stacks, he couldn't hear people come in. But he could hear the familiar pattern of little pitter-patter feet coming toward him, and then see a fuzzy black tail come bobbing into sight.

Toothless sat himself down right at Hiccup's feet and stared up at him. "Merrrrr," he greeted him.

"What—"

Right behind Toothless, Jack sauntered down the aisle, hands tucked into his hoodie, grinning all over his fey face. Jack was carrying a rolled-up piece of old yellowed paper under one arm, and the other fey lurking around vanished at the sight of him. A wave of something calm and quiet washed over Hiccup when he saw both Toothless and Jack.

"Hey," said Jack. He took a deep breath and looked around. "Aaaaaahhh, this feels familiar. Seems like just yesterday I was in here yelling and throwing things at you as you ignored me."

"That was last week."

Jack's gaze scraped over Hiccup. "You're okay," he said, a strange sort of satisfaction in his eyes.

Hiccup leaned against the bookshelf. The solid wood pressing into his arm grounded him. Behind his back, he curled the fingers of one hand under the edge of the shelf, digging his nails into the wood seam, getting wood pulp under them. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Jack's crooked grin grew wider. "I was kinda afraid, with the Fearlings after you…"

When Hiccup gave no response except to sink into silence, Jack's grin faltered.

"…you are fine, right?"

"They got to my dad," said Hiccup.

Jack's face glazed over with anger. He lowered his head, exhaled angrily through his nose, and pushed a hand through his wild white hair, rubbing his forehead harshly. "Did they infect him?"

"Is that what it is? It's like he's half dead."

"I'm sorry." There was a lick of fear in Jack's eyes when he looked at Hiccup, a pleading note in his voice. "I didn't meant to — If I hadn't —"

"Don't." Hiccup's voice came out hoarse. He'd already been through this once. Now he didn't want to think about it; he didn't have it in himself anymore to hate Jack for what he'd brought into Hiccup's life, not now, not with knowing everything that Jack must deal with on a regular basis, what Jack must have dealt with for years. And it wasn't like chaos wasn't always a part of Hiccup's life.

Hiccup was starting to feel quavering and unsteady. He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth to hide the expression on his face. His thoughts were crawling down a dark path, leading to things he didn't want to think about.

Jack's hand on his forearm startled him out of it. "If you really do get me memories back for me," said Jack, his voice rough and low as he leaned in toward Hiccup, "I'll get your dad back for you. Promise. Even if you can't, I'll do everything I can to fix it."

Hiccup's face went hot, a strange contrast to the chill seeping through his sleeve where Jack's hand rested. "Okay." Hiccup meant to sound strong and confident — instead his voice came out soft and breathy, more like a gasp for air. He snatched his arm away.

A slow exhalation, breath seeping out of his lungs, and he relaxed once again, rubbing at the cold spot on his forearm. He set his mouth and straightened his shoulders: they had things to do. They were going to fix this, like Jack said. Somehow, he trusted Jack, trusted that Jack would do the best to honor his word. Jack never meant to get Hiccup's life this fucked up, but sometimes, that was the way life went.

"Okay," he said again, steady this time. He kept his voice hushed, though the patron in the next aisle can undoubtedly hear him anyway. "But what are you doing here? I thought you were going to meet me at my house."

"Toothless brought me to meet you."

"Brought…you…?"

"Yeah." Jack smiled down at the cat and bent to scratch his ear, but Toothless dodged his outstretched fingers. "I went to your house, and he was sitting on the roof like he was waiting for me. So I followed him here."

"Too smart for your own good." Hiccup, stifling a smile, picked up Toothless and set him on the book cart, avoiding the cat's attempts to grab his face and scent-mark him. "Whose side are you on, anyway?"

"Ours." Jack rubbed his foot against his shin. "Should I wait outside?"

"No, I'm coming."

Hiccup stored the rest of the unsorted books in the back room for later. Jack followed Hiccup home in silence; not an angry or awkward silence, just a silence filled with contentment. It was the first time they'd been like that (while they were both awake), and Hiccup wasn't sure what to think of it.

He broke the silence halfway home. "So, there have been lot of the folk watching me."

Jack hadn't been paying attention, absorbed in his own thoughts. He started and looked round at Hiccup. "Er, what? Haven't they always?"

"There's a lot more." Hiccup fixed Jack with a look, trying to pin him down because he could tell Jack wanted to slide out of this conversation. "Like they're paying special attention to me now, and following me. Any idea why that might be, Jack?"

As if to prove his point, he glanced back at the humanoid faery that had begun to trail them half a block behind since they'd left the library. It froze in it's tracks when he glared at it, and turned around to go the other way.

"Ah." Jack rubbed the back of his head, leaving his hair a mess. "That's…that might be because they've probably heard of you."

"…heard of me."

"Yeah." With a resigned huff, Jack lowered his hand. "They may have heard about what happened between me and Pitch. Now everybody knows I have a human here in Berk."

"Hold up, _have_ me? You don't _have_ me—"

"Have a human helping me," Jack amended in a rush, but a splash of frosty pink appeared on his cheeks. His shoulders bunched up guiltily and he gave Hiccup a quick sideways look before turning his head away. A snickering sound came from a hedge they were passing, and Hiccup caught a glimpse of tiny golden wings before the fey hidden there scurried away.

They reached Hiccup's house with no more words between them.

"Meet me upstairs," he muttered to Jack as they trekked up the driveway. Jack, obedient, leapt up to the second story as Hiccup went in the front door. He made his obligatory "I'm home" call, which goes unanswered, and slipped away to his room. He got only a brief look of his father's shadow, slumped over at the kitchen table, and tried not to look at it too hard.

With Toothless on his heels, he opened his window and let Jack in.

Jack lingered on the window sill, looking around with wide, reverent eyes and leaving a light pattern of frost on the wood, before stretching his legs down and alighting on the floor. He had a bright look on his face, a mixture of delight, awe, and hopefulness.

"What?"

"I like being in here," Jack said. He turned, running his fingertips across Hiccups' bookshelf and desk.

"You were in here three days ago. Bleeding all over the place, I might add."

Jack snorted at that. "Sorry," he said, looking not at all sorry. "Invited in here, I mean." He plopped down on the bed, curling his fingers into Hiccup's askew blankets. "I've never been _invited_ into a human dwelling before. Hundreds of years…"

Hiccup hovered in the middle of his room, somehow the awkward one despite this being his house. He had the feeling of wanting to impress Jack with it. He shoved the feeling away. "How old are you?" he asked instead.

"I don't know." With a grimace, Jack tapped the side of his head. "Old, I guess."

"And yet still so immature." With Jack sputtering in indignation — which felt good, having Jack be the one wrong-footed for once — Hiccup moved to clear his desk. "Okay, tell me what we're doing."

Muttering to himself, Jack approached and unrolled the paper across the desk.

It was a map. It took Hiccup a moment to decipher it, to realize that the sprawling lines were hallways and rooms. The paper was thick and heavy; it left an oily residue on his fingers when he touched it. The two of them leaned over it together, Hiccup peering at it closely in wonder.

"This is a map of the Shadow Court. Aaaaaand," said Jack, rubbing his hands together with an excited grin. "I have something that will get us into it. Something to help us get the memories."

Hiccup glanced up at him wryly. "You mean something other than me."

"Very funny. Yes, something other than you." Jack pulled something else out of his pocket and presented it to Hiccup with a flourish, bowing low with his hand outstretched.

Two clear glass globes glimmered in reflected light from the window, small enough that they both fit in Jack's hand. A gold band circled each one.

Hiccup blinked in confusion and picked one up. It was cool and smooth to the touch. "Snow…globes."

"Yes! I got them from a friend who owed me a favor."

Jack didn't seem to be getting Hiccup's confusion, so Hiccup had to ask. "Okay. What are we supposed to with snow globes?"

"Oh! Right. Think of a place and give it a shake."

The shadow court came into his mind — it has been on his mind a lot lately, thought he had no idea what it looked like. He pictured something like a castle, but darker. He shook the globe, and, in his hand, something inside it glittered and churned. An image of darkened hallways and tree roots reaching into the earth like ravenous hands appeared. "Whoa."

Jack leaned against the desk and tapped his finger to Hiccup's globe. "They create doorways to wherever you're thinking of when you break them. You can only use it once, though. I've got one to get us there, one to get us back.

Hiccup tore his gaze away and looked up at Jack, enchanted. "So these can go anywhere?"

"Anywhere that occurs to you. But the court—"

"Where do they come from?"

Jack frowned at him. "They're a powerful spell, and no, I don't know it. Like I said, I got them from someone else. We just need them to get into and out of the shadow court."

Hiccup pinched his mouth together, his eyes falling back to the map, stretched out before him and waiting. Reluctantly, he handed the globe back to Jack. "Okay. Tell me about the court."

There were so many hallways and rooms, so many lines and dots and squares and squiggles. Hiccup couldn't believe what he was looking at; how many years had he known about the fey? But he never knew they came from somewhere, and now he did, and he had a _map_ of it, and he was about to know so much more. He could make out a throne room, antechambers, storage rooms, living quarters. The court was tangled web of rooms, hallways, halls, gardens, caves, and other things that aren't clear on the map, and Hiccup was fascinated.

As they both leaned in further to stare at it, Jack's hair tickled Hiccup's forehead. The air between them mingled, cold and warm.

"It's so big," whispered Hiccup. He glanced up at Jack. He was startled to see Jack right there, so close that he could see the shadows cast by his eyelashes and the faint freckles dotted across Jack's nose that he'd never noticed before. His lashes were as pale as his hair, a striking contrast to his dark blue eyes.

Jack grinned at Hiccup and didn't move away. Hiccup felt his face heat up.

"Um."

Uncomfortable, he straightened up, creating a little more space between them. "I never thought there was… there must be so many of you. It's like a city on its own, a second city right near Berk."

Jack cleared his throat. "Yeah, basically, that's what it is." His face darkened. He looked away from Hiccup, hitching one shoulder up and rubbing at the back of his neck.

_Most of us were banished here_, Jack had said. That meant Jack must have left behind something. Did he have friends in the court? Did he have a _family_? "Probably nicer than this tiny human town," he offered, but Jack shook his head.

"No. It's not. Not at all."

"Oh."

"I would a million times rather be here, if it weren't — I mean, if I had my memories, even with all the metal around here."

"You mean if you were free?"

Jack's eyes cut to Hiccup sharply. "Yeah."

"Did you have friends in the court?"

"No," said Jack, to Hiccup's surprise. "I was… I never…" But here his voice faltered, and he lost his train of thought. He rubbed at his forehead for a moment, looking lost, opening and closing his mouth a little, then blurted out. "I don't remember."

"You don't…remember anything?"

Jack said nothing to that, merely shifted between his feet and looked uncomfortable.

Hiccup's resolved hardened. He fumbled in his pencil cup and pulled out a pencil, twirling it between his fingers so fast it was a blur. A tiny grin pulled at the corners of Jack's mouth as he watched Hiccup's hands.

"Where are the memories?"

Back to the task at hand, the both leaned in once more, all their awkwardness forgotten. "There are a couple of places I think they're most likely to be," said Jack, tracing a finger along the map. "Here, in one of these storage rooms where Pitch keeps things like trophies and spoils. Or," he paused, his finger moving to the largest room in the center, and took a deep breath, "here, in the great hall, where he spends nearly all of his time. With him."

Hiccup winced. "Do you think he carries them about with him?"

"I don't know," admitted Jack. "I really hope not. Either way, we'll check these outer rooms first. We're less likely to be discovered there. We won't go into the great hall unless we have to."

"What do memories look like? How will I know when I've found them?"

"It'll be obvious." At Hiccup's worried expression, Jack struggled to explain better. "Look, your Sight is gonna do some pretty strange stuff that I don't know how to explain. You'll be able to tell a lot about things. Just trust me."

Hiccup just hummed doubtfully. He looked at the map again, nervous, worrying at his lower lip. "What," he began, coughed, and began again, "what will the court be like?"

"Well." Jack chose his words carefully here. "There are some, uh, festivities going on this time of year, so it's unusually crowded. But, nearly all of the fey will be in one room, the great hall. Everywhere else should be almost deserted. I really hope we can find them somewhere, and that Pitch doesn't keep them on himself, or else we'll have to go in there."

Hiccup opened his mouth to say something, but Jack interrupted him.

"You'll be okay," he added. "In the crowds no one will pay attention to you. It'll be too confusing. If anybody notices you, they'll just think you're a fey like them."

Hiccup thought about going into a crowd of nothing but faeries, and his stomach knotted, but he gave Jack a tight, small smile. "When do we start?"

Jack's relieved smile lit up his face, brilliant as winter sunlight. "Up to you."

"I want to get this over with as soon as possible." Hiccup tried to keep his voice firm. He didn't want any of his anxiety, worry, excitement he felt to stain his voice, but he had the feeling a little leaked through when Jack gave him a sympathetic wince. The sooner he fixed Jack, the sooner Jack could fix Stoick. "Can we go tonight?"

"Yeah, sure—" A creak on the stairs cut Jack off. His eyes went to Hiccup's door. Hiccup froze, too. Heavy footsteps ascended the staircase. Hiccup glanced at Jack in alarm and the look on Jack's face made whatever Hiccup was going to say next get stuck in his throat.

"I gotta go," Jack whispered.

"It's just my dad," Hiccup whispered back, "and he can't hear you. You'll be fine." But he wasn't sure at all about that last part; he only hoped it was true. Whatever Pitch had done to Stoick…Hiccup didn't know what that meant. If Stoick could see or hear Jack…

Jack shook his head. "I'll come back for you tonight." Quick a snowflake, he pecked Hiccup on the top of his head and was gone out the window, leaving nothing behind except quiet and cold air and Hiccup with his heart beating wildly, staring after Jack in confusion.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

I told you I'd be back soon with a better, longer update! And here it is, as promised.


	11. Past

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

i was going to hold off on posting another update for fear of spoiling people, but…fuck it

* * *

Hiccup didn't have much time to be startled or confused by Jack's weird behavior. Stoick's shuffling footsteps reached his doorway and he knocked. _Thud…thud…thud…_ His fist came heavy against the door, nothing like his usual polite tap. "Hiccup." There was a touch of something painful and desperate and haunted in his voice, and the sound of it send goosebumps crawling over Hiccup. Toothless let out an unhappy yowl and disappeared into Hiccup's closet with an angry twitch of his bushed-out tail. "Hiccup…are ye in there?"

Swallowing, Hiccup pulled the door open. Shadows fled in all directions, and their faint screeching echoed in Hiccup's skull as they went.

Stoick looked awful. His skin was haggardly grey, his eyes hollow, his face slack, and he was half propped against the doorframe, almost as if he were having trouble standing up — but when he looked at Hiccup, his gaze was clear. Some of Hiccup's anxiety left him; Stoick was lucid and aware.

"Dad." His mouth opened and hung there as thoughts tripped their way through his brain. He stared up at his father, lost for words.

"Can I come in, son?" Stoick made an effort to speak clearly, struggling to enunciate each syllable. "I want to talk to you."

Wordless, Hiccup nodded and stepped back. Stoick lumbered into the room and sunk down on Hiccup's bed with an exhausted sigh. Frozen in place, Hiccup watched him. Stoick looked so… old. He was getting old and one day he was going to die.

And then Hiccup had another thought, so strong that it stood out against the background noise of his mind. _This is my fault, _he realized._ He's given so much to raise me, and I… I'm…_

There was no time to dwell on it. There was no time for anything. Stoick was speaking, his voice slow but clear, and Hiccup's attention snapped back to him. "I wanted," Stoick began, "to apologize to you…for.…yelling at you the other day…about the books." He coughed. "And for trying…to make you go back to the doctor."

_Oh gods. _Hiccup felt a lump forming in his throat, but he couldn't do anything except stare at his dad.

Stoick went on. "I know that I don't trust you…enough. I am…sorry about that. You're a good kid and…I should trust you…more."

There was a sound from the closet as Toothless wriggled his way deeper behind Hiccup's stuff. The vents in the house came on with a faint _whoooooooosh_. Hiccup clenched his hands into fists at his sides, and his vision started to blur as he stared at the spot on the wall right behind Stoick's head.

Stoick was slumped over with his hands folded on his lap, gazing at his son with a doleful expression. "I'm just too worried about you," he continued. "I always have been. Especially since your mother…since Val disappeared. I'm afraid that this illness…you have will get worse…like hers did." There was a pause as Stoick swallowed, cleared his throat, and pushed onward. "I know I…expected a lot of you…and I know you already have a lot to deal with…on your own…and you handle it. I'm very proud of you. You're strong…like your mother."

Even though Hiccup had been ten years old when his mother disappeared, he had almost no memories of her. The few memories that he'd been able to cling to over the years were blurry and vague. He'd always wondered about here, been hungry to know her more, but Stoick had always been reluctant and unhappy to talk about her, so Hiccup had stopped asking long ago.

"You are so much like her. I see more of her in you…every day. Both so curious…smart…and creative. She was always drawing, too, like you do. She had notebooks and notebooks…full of sketches of her visions."

And Stoick had never before talked about her on his own.

Hiccup was looking at his father in a daze now, his mouth half open. "Notebooks?" he echoed, his voice faint. "Of…of what she saw?"

Stoick nodded heavily. "I've still got them. They've been boxes up in the attic…since she's been gone."

Hiccup's chest felt squeezed tight; he could barely breathe. His mother had drawn the fair folk too. Had she talked about them? _Had she known what they were?_

Hiccup wanted to ask his dad if he _knew_ Valka had seen the same things, and what that meant if she had. But then moment passed, and Stoick was still speaking.

"I miss her still." A tear ran out of Stoick's eye and into his beard. He wiped his cheek with a gruff hand, looking away from Hiccup. "I'm sorry that I've been…treating you like you don't know what you're doing. I'm just afraid…of losing you too."

At last, speaking had tired Stoick out. His hand fell to his lap and he stared off into space, his shoulders slumped, silent and distant.

Guilt wracked Hiccup's lungs and stole the air out of them. He was putting the pieces together, realizing — Valka hadn't just gone crazy off the deep end like everyone thought, like they'd always been afraid to say to Hiccup's face. He'd always known, though, known what they talked about before he would walk into a room and they stopped. _I should tell him_, Hiccup thought. _I should tell him that we say the same things, that it's all real, she didn't just wander off after a hallucination to die._ And then because this wasn't horrible enough, he had another thought. _Something else must have happened. The folk must have done something to her. _

Hiccup had done his reading. He knew good things never happened to humans who went to the folk. Whatever had happened then, she was still gone now. But…

_I need to tell him. _

But, looking at his dad, sitting worn out and heartbroken on his bed, he couldn't bring himself to say it. Not yet anyway. _I'll tell him later. After Jack and I find a way to heal him from the shadows._

Stoick heaved himself to his feet to leave, and Hiccup remembered that he still hadn't said anything. "Dad—" he blurted out.

"I understand if you…if you're still mad."

Hiccup had no words, so he did the only other thing that he could think of. He ran at his dad and threw his arms around him. His arms could barely reach, but he hung on anyway and buried his face against his dad's chest. "It's okay." Stoick's shirt muffled his voice. "Dad, it's okay, I — I'm not mad at you." And that was the best he could say.

Stoick's arms wrapped around him, and Hicucp was buried in warmth and threadbare shirt sleeves. For a second he was just a kid again, coming to his dad after someone picked on him for talking to invisible people, or clinging to him as he sobbed his heart after his mother's memorial service. Stoick was solid and steady. A deep sigh escaped Hiccup. _Soon_, he promised silent. _Soon I'll fix everything and tell you._


	12. Forbidden Fruit

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

tbh i have been waiting for a chance to use the phrase "forbidden fruit", and here it is. ;)

* * *

Hiccup moped.

He would never admit to moping, but for most of the afternoon he lay on his bed with his head pillowed on his folded arms, staring off into space and mulling things over. He tried not to think about Stoick — Jack had said he'd help Hiccup find a way to fix him and Hiccup believed him — but that meant his thoughts turned instead onto Jack, and what Jack's behavior meant. He'd gotten used to having Jack around in the last few weeks, but he still didn't really understand him. He didn't _get_ Jack.

Questions about Jack chased themselves around and around in Hiccup's brain. Why had Jack kissed Hiccup on the top of his head? Was he just a really affectionate person? Was it out of gratefulness for Hiccup's help? Did he _like_ Hiccup?

Did the fair folk even have the same ideas about affection?

Jack had been alone for a long time; he'd said as much to Hiccup. And any time they'd been too close, hadn't it been Jack who was initiating, following him around, leaning up against him, getting in his space? Jack was obviously the type of person who needed attention, and he'd been living without it for centuries.

Now Hiccup just felt stupid.

"Uuuuuuuuuugh." He rolled over onto his back and rammed his pillow over his face. He was just the confused focal point for a lonely, touch-starved faery. He shouldn't be focusing on something that had no further meaning behind it. What all this was over and Jack was free, he would disappear and Hiccup would never see him again.

Toothless curled up on Hiccup's stomach and stared down at him.

"I know I'm over-thinking it," Hiccup informed the cat. Toothless blinked slowly. Then he reached out and placed a paw on Hiccup's mouth as if to shush him. Hiccup batted it away and tried to push Jack from his mind.

_It doesn't mean anything._

* * *

A chill crept into the air that night. Inside, Stoick had already fallen asleep in the living room, snoring away, the most peaceful Hiccup had seen him since the Fearlings had come. Hiccup stood on their small porch, watching his breath cloud the air as he waited for Jack. He kept fiddling with the strings and zippers on his jacket, and Toothless, picking up on Hiccup's nervous energy, was pacing back and forth around his feet and letting out loud, distressed meows.

"This is crazy," Hiccup muttered to himself. He jammed his hands into his pockets and spun around, going to sit on the rickety porch swing. He immediately stood back up again. "I can't believe I'm doing this."

Light as air and quick as a spark, Jack dropped right out of the sky in front of him. "Hi."

Hiccup let out squawk, then stood with his hands on his knees trying to recover while Jack smothered his giggle behind his hand. Hiccup glared at him. "That's not funny."

"I didn't do it on purpose." He grinned at Hiccup, delighted, but then his face sobered up. "Are you ready for this?" His voice was all inflated bravado, trying not to worry Hiccup more than he already was worried. From his pocket he withdrew one of the globes, tosses it up into the air and catches it again, smiling.

Hiccup steeled himself. "Let's do this."

"Okay. The Shadow Court." Jack gave the globe a quick shake and hurls it at the ground. Hiccup barely had time to see the dark hallways form in the glass before it shattered.

The portal opened in a rush. Reality broke down into a whirlpool of air, blossoming in front of him until it was bigger than a doorway. Hiccup stared; actually seeing it in front of him was more overwhelming than he had imagined, and suddenly he was wondering what it would feel like: would it hurt, would it make him sick, would it be like he imagined being drunk is?

"Oh my god," he heard himself saying, "I don't know if this is a good idea anymore. Maybe I should just—"

"No time for that now, come on." Jack seized him by the sleeve and yanked him toward, and even though he shouldn't, Hiccup dragged his feet, staring desperately at the swirling, roaring colors.

Wind pushed at his hair, blowing it into his eyes. He opened his mouth to sputter and it was immediately dry. "Oooh gosh, oh gods, uuuuuuh."

Toothless let out a meow and Hiccup turned back for a second to see the cat curled up on the porch swing.

"Toothless, come on!"

"We're not taking the báirseach!" Jack yelled. "Just go!"

"The what?!"

With an extra yank, Jack pulled Hiccup around and shoved him into the whirling air.

It wasn't like he expected. Everything went blurry for a second, wind howled in his ears, and then he was stumbling onto his feet in a dark, earthy hallway, and Jack was right next to him. The portal closed up behind them and it was silent.

"Wasn't so bad, was it?" Jack whispered.

Hiccup took a deep breath. "Oh."

The floor was flat stones, carved to fit together with dark soil packed between them. It was smooth and cool beneath his feet, smelled dark and earthy. The walls were packed earth between twisting tree roots. Jack paused to listen to the stillness, and then they crept around a corner, checking to make sure the hallway beyond was empty. There were doorways with lanterns on either side spaced out along a long hallway, which curved away so Hiccup couldn't see far.

"This is where the storage rooms are," Jack whispered.

"Uh, where are the guards?" Hiccup whispered back.

"Patrolling. There's only a couple anyway."

"Why? Isn't this guy the, you know, all-powerful king of a city of faeries?"

Jack shook his head with a soft scoff. "Of course he is, that's why this stuff isn't well-guarded. After all, who would _dare_ steal from the Shadow King?"

"You mean, aside from us?"

A smug, crooked smile was the only answer Jack gives to that as he pushed open the first door.

The room beyond was gloomy. Several lanterns sputtered to life as they entered, giving out faint bluish green glows that do little against the dark shadows. There were dead trees that had grown right out of the floor, and their spindly skeletal branches were hung with ornaments; strange jewelry, some made of metals and jewels, some made of bones and other things Hiccup didn't look too closely at; glass jars with gum wrappers, empty lipstick tubes, crumpled receipts, an eyeball.

Hiccup walked through it all, staring. His brain felt weird, like a radio going haywire; every time he touched something he got a spark, an impression of it in his mind, like the objects were all trying to talk to him somehow but they had no voices.

"What's it all for?"

"Trophies, mostly," Jack answered, his voice low and dark. "Stuff Pitch has…taken."

Hiccup, in the middle of peering at the eyeball that gave him an impression of screaming and loneliness, drew back with a shudder. "Uuuuugh."

"Do you See anything?"

"How would I know?"

"It…" Jack stopped himself, and Hiccup could tell he was tamping down on some emotion, frustration or panic. "It would be something like…you would know. I don't know how to describe it. Don't you feel anything from all this? This room is stuffed with magic."

"Yeah, I do." Hiccup stared at his tingling hands, rubbing his fingers together like he was trying to rub off a layer of grit. He gave up and shook his head. "I don't think any of this is memories, though."

The next room had bodies, sleeping among the roots of trees like a strange underground orchard. None of them stirred as Jack and Hiccup stepped lightly between them, but their chests rose and fell with each slow, far apart breath. It left the hairs on Hiccup's neck standing straight up, his scalp prickling with unease. The flashes he got here were twisted somehow, unable to leave solid impressions but feeding him a feeling of horror. "I don't like this," he said, shivering. "Let's move on."

The room beyond that was a garden, growing plants that pulsed and wriggled, plants like gems and rocks, plants that were strange colors and smells. One tree grew pale white apples that smelled like perfume and looked like death. Nothing here spoke to him.

He stopped walking with a deep sigh. This was exhausting him far too fast. Distantly, he thought about his bed at home. "I don't think it's any of these rooms," he said to Jack, rubbing an eye with the meat of his palm. "I just… it's not."

Jack paused, shoulders sagged in resignation. "You're…" He began, stopped himself, began again. "Your sight is stronger than I thought. If you can tell already." There was concern in his gaze as it raked over Hiccup, and his eyebrows drew together.

"Is that what it is." It wasn't really a question.

Jack didn't vindicate that with an answer; he simply moved on after a moment of chewing on his lip and twisting his hands in his hoodie pocket. "We'll have to go into the hall," he said. "Are you ready for that?"

"Let's get it over with." He grasped Jack's wrists for a second, pulling them free so Jack stopped fidgeting. "I'm going to find them. I said I would."

"Come on," was Jack's only answer.

They stole silently through a few empty hallways. As they went, a sound, faint and distant at first, grew louder and louder until Hiccup could identify it as the sound of a huge party happening: laughter, music, chatter and singing. It wasn't unlike the sounds of a human house party, but there was an extra element to it, an edge that kept it from feeling normal. It was a little _too_ beautiful. A little _too_ lilting and musical.

"Okay," said Jack, pulling Hiccup to a stop. "Just…act natural. Nobody's going to be paying much attention to anything, so if anyone pays attention to you, just smile and nod and slip away. Stick to me."

"Okay."

Jack looked at him for another moment as if he wanted to say something else, but couldn't decide what. Hiccup opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but before he could get anything out, Jack darted forward, around the corner, and then they were pushing through a crowd that spilled out of the doorways to an enormous room.

Color, sound, scents, all exploded around him. It was a struggle to keep sight of Jack as they both dipped and darted their way through people and creatures of every color, shape, size. There were tables spilling over with strange food and drink, instruments packed in corners playing themselves, dancing circles formed wherever there was space.

Jack wasn't distracted by any of it. He'd obviously seen it before, and he wormed his way through quickly.

"Jack, wait—" Hiccup tried to grab a hold of Jack's hoodie but it slipped away out of his grasp.

_Okay, he's headed toward the front, just get to the front, don't…_ It was difficult to think. He didn't get flashes from the living folk here but he could definitely feel the magic, pulling at him, incredible and irresistible. He stopped, looking around.

Hiccup couldn't help himself; he was fascinated. Here was the source of everything that had plagued him all his life. Here, the creatures he had never been able to speak to. Here, an entire forbidden world around him. Here, the sights, sounds, colors, tastes of something both sacred and profane. This could be the only chance he would have to experience it without being discovered.

And he wanted to taste.

Jostled among writhing, ornamented bodies, a laughing girl clutched his shoulder. Her laugh reminded him of Astrid for a second, but she said something in a language he didn't know.

"What?"

She repeated.

Hiccup had lost all sight of Jack between the crowd, but he couldn't care very much. "Sorry, I don't know what you're saying?"

Apparently she didn't understand him either. She laughed and touched his face, her eyes crinkled up at the corners, and Hiccup found himself handed off to another fey and another, until he was passed to one who shouted "dance! Dance!" at him again and again. Somebody put a wreath of flowers on his head.

"What are we all celebrating?" he asked.

The fey twirled and blinked large bird-like eyes at him. "Samhain is coming!" they said.

Hiccup was shoved, grabbed, and dipped confusingly by someone else, and when he came back up he'd lost the faery that was talking to him. Several tiny pixies alighted on his shoulders and pulled little tendrils of his hair. "That sacrifice, the sacrifice is coming soon!" they chanted at him, bubbling in excitement, and flew off again. Their silver-bell voices almost blended in with the music, which was all around, earth-shaking and body-pulsing. "What sacrifice?" he tried to ask, but his voice got lost. Something scraped claws across his back but he couldn't turn around.

It was all chaos.

A elf a head shorter than him kissed him on the cheek. A gnome — or something like it — ran past pursued by several goblins. A boy with eyes like green marbles took him and twirled him, and Hiccup gave up all notion of trying to keep track of anything. He'd lost all sense of why he was here, or where else he was supposed to be. This was simply reality: the chiming, throbbing music, the swirling bright colors, the mixing scents of flowers, fruit, and something else darker, the blissful sensation of friendly bodies all around him. There was no where else to be, nothing else he needed to do but join them. Who had he been before this? Where? None of that mattered.

Something in him was unraveling, something tight and hurting that had been in him so long he hadn't even known it was there anymore was coming undone, letting out feelings and cravings that he'd long ago forgotten about or forced away. He felt wild, feral. A burning smile split his face. A shrill laugh spilled from him.

For a second, he thought he heard his name, called distantly like he'd caught it on the edge of a wind. But it was nothing. A girl with doe antlers — the one he'd thought sounded like Astrid — joined them again, petting his arms while the boy dipped him again. She said something unintelligible and offered him something in the palm of her hand. Fruit like gems, brilliant reds and purples, and her own mouth was stained dark with their juice.

They tasted rich and cloying, and a bit like something Hiccup couldn't quite put his finger on, but he found himself putting more in his mouth and biting down, grinding them between his teeth and sucking them down to seeds.

There was a shout. It took a moment to register because of the chaos, but someone pushed their way through and grabbed Hiccup by the shoulder. A gasp went through the surrounding fey like a breeze, and they fell silent, eyes locked on the intruder.

It was a boy who looked familiar; white hair, faint freckles, blue hoodie, and Hiccup had the fleeting thought that he was pretty and he wanted him. The boy shoved the other fey away from Hiccup, yelling, and smacked the remaining fruit from his hand. "Don't eat those!"

The illusion shattered as Hiccup came back to himself. He blinked at Jack and the other fey around them went deathly still. The girl touched his arm and murmured something that sounded confused.

Somehow he was able to understand it, even though the words coming from her mouth weren't english. _Why shouldn't you eat?_

Someone else breathed the answer. _He's human. _

Reality crashed into Hiccup. Oh god, what had he just done? He was a human boy, standing in the middle of a crowd of faeries, having just eaten their food and then revealed himself, and he still didn't know where the memories were.

Where were they? Where was Pitch? Hiccup twisted around, standing on his toes to see over the crowd of folk, looking for the throne. Over their heads he caught sight of it, and a tall, dark man rising to his feet, anger and disbelief etched on his face—

Then suddenly the fey were all surging in toward him, crowding him on every side, Jack was tugging on his sleeve, "we've got to go, we gotta get you out—!" Hiccup couldn't breathe, he was suffocating; desire for his house, safe and quiet, flooded his mind. His hand found Jack's pocket and his fingers closed around the cool smooth globe and—

There was a confusing blend of colors, the whole world tilted, a roaring of high wind in his ears — then they were in the middle of Hiccup's driveway, stumbling a bit over the concrete, breathing in cold night air that smelled only of pine and cedar. Just them. The portal closed behind them and Hiccup tried to catch his breath.

"What was that?!" Jack was glaring at him with his fists curled up at his sides; Hiccup had never seen him this angry. "What the fuck was that?!"

"What—" gasped Hiccup.

"You USED THE GLOBE AND WE DON'T HAVE THE MEMORIES." Jack yelled. He spun around, pacing back and forth in agitated motions, seeming not to know what to do with his hands. He settled for punching the garage door, which let off a hollow clang. "I can't get any more of those! This was it! My one shot!"

"I'm sorry." Hiccup heard himself saying. He backed slowly away from Jack, eyeing the agitated movement of his hands. "I got distracted."

"Dis…distracted." Jack echoed, staring at him. "How could _you_ get distracted?!"

The night air was cool but Hiccup's skin was starting to feel overheated and clammy. His throat felt weird and when he tried to swallow, it stuck. He was still dazed, the echoes of fair folk music swimming around his head. Still stuck in the feeling of magic like a sugar rush. "…Uh…"

Jack punched the garage again. "I thought you hated the folk!" he yelled. "In and out as fast as we could, isn't that what you wanted?! Just to get it over with?! How could you—" as he ranted, he stalked closer to Hiccup and jammed a finger into his chest, "of all people! — get distracted?!"

Hiccup didn't know what to say with that. His mouth was still tainted with the flavor of forbidden fruit, he could still feel the tingling of his skin where every fey had touched him. "I…" he tried, "I don't…uh…"

"I should have known better! You act like you hate us so much but you're fascinated, aren't you?! We're just a big fucking exhibition for you, like animals in a zoo!"

"No, that's not—" Hiccup's stomach churned and for a second he went lightheaded. He felt feverish. He bent over, gasping, and Jack grabbed him by the arms.

"Listen, Hiccup—" Jack's voice was low and urgent but still threaded with a current of anger. "Did you eat anything?" Hiccup didn't answer. Jack shook him, leaning in closer. His mouth was a thin, angry line. "Did you _eat anything_ there?!"

Hiccup shoved him away, his hands pushing weakly against Jack's chest. "Get off of me," he mumbled. Jack let him go.

"DID YOU EAT ANYTHING?!"

"JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Hiccup's shout echoed off the garage, rolled away into the night and the neighborhood, and too late, he remembered that the neighbors might not have been able to hear Jack, but they could definitely hear him. Still, he didn't care. His heart was going too fast, fluttering like a hummingbird's, and his skin still felt wrong.

Jack glowered at him, his face white, his eyes dark. Silence fell. A breeze stirred and the bench on the porch let out a long _creeeeaaaaak_ as it swung in the wind.

"Fine."

That was the only word Jack had for Hiccup. In a second, he'd turned away and gone, disappearing over the rooftops.


	13. Darkness Unfurled

AUTHOR'S NOTE: tbh i'm a lil drunk atm

* * *

Hiccup stood shell-shocked for a moment, reeling in what had just happened. Jack was gone; in the space he'd left behind, the night was dead silent. No birds, no crickets, not even a breath of wind stirred. Black treetops hid the tiny sliver of moon, and except for the street lamps, it was so dark it was stifling.

Weariness left Hiccup's muscles aching. Not know what else to do, he turned and went to the door. He didn't know when Jack would come back — if he would ever come back, since Hiccup had just ruined his one chance at freedom.

He hoped Jack would come back.

As the door creaked open, Toothless darted through the gap in a flicker of black fur.

"Toothless—!" Hiccup began, cheered by the sight of his cat there to greet him. But Toothless streaked past and fled into the night, down the driveway, into the street, past the pools of lamplight, until he was swallowed up by the darkness without even a mew for Hiccup or a glance back. Hiccup stared after him. "…what…"

If he'd been more alert, he might have worried about Toothless, but he was so tired that it didn't really enter the fog of his brain. He felt like his whole being was sagging, being pulled down toward the earth. He just wanted to collapse into bed and forget everything he'd ever experience of the fair folk. Then he could think about what had happened to him. Then he could worry and regret.

But before he could sleep, there was one thing he had to do.

_I have to tell my dad._ He sighed deeply, his hand still on the door knob. After everything that had happened, it was long past the time when he should have told him._ I owe him the truth at least. I'll wake him up. _

He went inside.

It was past midnight, and all the lights should have been off, but the light from the kitchen streamed into the entryway. Stoick stood there, looming in the hall and staring at him as though he'd been expecting Hiccup — who was supposed to asleep in his own room — to some sneaking in the front door in the middle of the night.

Hiccup sucked in a terrified lungful of air, blood frozen, before he realized it was his dad. He melted back against the door, shutting it with a loud click. "Oh, dad," he started. "You're…um…awake?" His limbs felt limp. Everything inside him felt like it was melted; his stomach twisted up with sickening, but-wrenching fear. He had to say it.

But no answer. Was Stoick angry with him?

It didn't matter. Hiccup _had_ to tell him. He took a deep breath and plunged on with the feeling of throwing himself off a cliff. "Actually, it's good! That you're awake! I gotta talk to you, Dad. There's something I need to tell you. About my halluci— about the fair folk."

Something wasn't right. Hiccup couldn't see Stoick's face but something about the way he was just _standing there_ — the set of his shoulders too stiff, his back too straight — sent Hiccup's skin prickling. He found himself edging away before he knew what he was doing.

"Uuuuhhhhh, dad? Are you going to say—"

He wasn't fast enough.

Stoick's fist snapped out and left Hiccup sprawled across the tile floor, ears ringing, face throbbing. Dazed, he put one hand to his nose. His fingers came away damp; his nose was bleeding.

His mouth opened but he had no time to say anything; Stoick was coming for him too fast and Hiccup was scrambling out of the way but he was small, he was so small next to his father's massive bulk, he always had taken after his mother that way—

"Dad!" he shouted, dodging as the fist swung again. He felt sick and shaky and his feet wouldn't move the way he needed them to. "Dad, what's going on?"

He'd never felt this small. He'd never thought about how large his father was, but now he was aware of it, painfully aware, and he felt tiny and _breakable_ in comparison.

His head was throbbing from just one punch, and Stoick was stalking toward him still, a hulking mass.

He managed to squirm past his father toward the warm yellow light in the kitchen, but he tripped over his own feet and went sprawling across the floor again. Stoick's hand curled around HIccup's shirt and he hoisted him bodily into the air. A beam of light falling through the kitchen door lit up Stoick's face and Hiccup could see him: could see the greyed-out skin, could see the darkened hollows of his eyes, could see the eerie greyish-yellow glow of his eyes. His eyes weren't focused on Hiccup; they were blurry and far away.

"It's me, Hiccup panted. "Your son, please— I need to talk to you about mom, about _Valka_—"

Stoick's face contorted with anger. Hiccup had never called his own mother her name before.

He said it now in a frantic attempt to bring Stoick back to himself, but it was too late for him. His other hand curled around Hiccup's neck and _squeezed_, and Hiccup thought, _this is it, the end_; he was going to die at the hands of his own possessed father.

He couldn't breathe. The shadows were laughing at him. He could hear them laughing in his head, he could _feel_ them. Desperately, he thought, _get out, get away from him_, and then, nonsensically, _help me_.

The world tilted, the darkness swirled in around him, and then—

He could breathe again.

His knees hit the floor and he sucked in air so fast that it caught in his throat and he choked on it. Coughing, he blinked to clear his vision and realized Stoick had been pulled away by _something_. It looked like the unfurled darkness of the shadows was wrapped over him. Stoick still wasn't himself; he was fighting back, struggling ferociously to get to Hiccup, his arms swiping at him, his face blank but somebody else's fury in his eyes.

Hiccup didn't wait anymore. In a heartbeat he was on his feet and out the door, speeding away down the street and into the night, unable to look back, barely able to notice where he was going.


	14. The Hunt for In-Between

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I can't believe I managed to write and edit this entire chapter in only a day. New record for me.

* * *

Hiccup ran. He just ran and ran and ran, down and through abandoned suburban streets, dark sleeping houses, and street light after flickering street light. Cold air rushed across his skin. He didn't want to think about anything; he ran until he lost his breath and had to stop.

He stopped, gasping and clutching at his side. His lungs burned. Adrenaline had left him trembling so hard it felt like he was going to shake apart at the seams, and his spent muscles ached.

He pulled himself back together slowly. Hands, limbs, heaving chest. A breeze picked up and dragged a cloud of dead leaves down the street with rattling, whispery sounds toward Hiccup. One stuck itself to his face, and when he pulled it away it was spattered with drops of red.

The breeze became a raging wind. From somewhere in the distance came a hollow, wailing echo like wind in caves, the night growing wild, the tops of trees rushing, loose leaves and pine needles skittering across concrete and floating through the air. A blast like a hunting horn pierced the steady _whooosh_ of it, and—

—and then Hiccup realized: behind the wailing of the wind was a cacophony of real howls and wails, and more sounds, baying and laughing and screeching.

_No_.

He'd read about the wild hunt, known that it existed, at least in theory. But now it was here. Down the street came a hoard of the Aos S**í**, shadows leaping and shrieking at its feet like water. The folk riding creatures like horses but not, mounts made of darkness with glowing empty yellow eyes and swirling ethereal manes and tails constantly dissolving into the atmosphere. And behind the riders, a stream of the folk on foot, running along with their own hair flying.

Before he had a chance to move they were on him and he was lost among them. They reached out for him. He was shoved and grabbed at and a confusing tumult of voices spilled over his ears.

"Poor lost soul!"

"Let's take him with us."

"Oooooh, what a pretty human pet!"

His heart raced. He was passed from faery to faery, hands grabbing at his arms and fingers brushing through his hair. The air crackled with excitement that was both electric and alarming, and he could so easily get lost in it again, but.

_No, please, no. _

Not again.

It was chaos. Dark and bitter and dangerous chaos.

A creature with bird claws for hands snatches at him but he dipped out of reach. He didn't want to get lost in this, and he clung to the memory of who he was, how he'd got here. The hunt was fear, horror, rushing adrenaline, the writhing mass of bodies around him, the howling and screeching, the wildness of it. He wanted to be anywhere else but here, do anything so they wouldn't take him. He had to remember who he was. Where he'd come from. It was so important.

His chest felt like it was being squeezed, something in him shrinking and winding itself up so tight he's going to die. Everything in him recoiled. His limbs froze up, his mouth clamped shut, his eyes looked frantically from one face to the next, trying to see everything at once, trying to avoid the grasping claws and hands.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!"

The words tore themselves from his mouth but were immediately swallowed up by the fray. No one could hear him. No one was listening.

One clutched at his shoulder, laughing. "He's been under the hill already!"

"Why not come with us? You're already half there!"

A chorus of laughter bubbled up at those words. There were jeers and words like "lost boy" and "pet" and "changeling" thrown around. A pair of hands descended on him, deposited a crown of thorns onto his head, and pushed it down, scraping his scalp.

They were moving. Taking his hands, pulling him along with them. Chanting. Join the hunt, join the hunt, join the hunt. Words were jumbled and lost among the savage, joyful screeches.

"NO!" His feet flew across the ground but he couldn't see where he was being led. He tried to pull away only to be passed to fresh hands. He strained to see through them and caught a glimpse of a bright spot of light in the middle of the dark suburbia.

A gas station.

With one last effort, he wrenched himself free of their clutches and sprinted toward it.

"Where are you going?"

"They won't take you back now!"

Their disappointed catcalls followed him as he stumbled into the pool of fluorescent light, but they didn't follow. He staggered inside. The door shut behind him with the faint _ting!_ of a bell. He couldn't hear them anymore. He could only hear faint classic rock and the mechanical hum of an slurpee machine.

Outside, the hunt circled the station, keeping their distance from the metal, but as the faeries quickly lost interest in him, most of them began to trickle away.

_Get away get away get away…_

The employee behind the counter didn't even glance up as Hiccup staggered through the shelves of prepackaged convenience food toward the back where the bathrooms were and shut himself inside. Finally he could breathe. He ripped of the crown of thorns and flung it away from him. It bounced off the wall and landed behind the toilet, and leaned against the door taking slow, even breaths until his heart rate slowed down and he could feel his hands again.

He was a mess. Somehow he'd lost a shoe, so one foot had nothing but a sock. Blood covered the lower half of his face, his neck, and his chest. He stared at himself in the cracker mirror over the sink. He looked…

…like his father: hollow-eyed and pale-skinned. But unlike his father, there was still color in him: clear green in his eyes, red splashed all over him. The bright lights washed him out and made his look as exhausted as he felt. A bruise was already blooming across one side of his face.

He splashed cold water on it, tried to scrub off all the blood he could with a flimsy paper towel, but some of it had already dried around his nose. He scraped his finger through his hair, retied his one shoe, and checked his pocket. His phone was still there, but the battery was almost dead at only 5%.

He shot a quick text to Astrid while he still could.

_—please please please be awake right now_

He slunk back out to press his face to the windows, but the folk were all gone now. He practically melted with relief. His limbs still felt shaky and he could almost hear Astrid's voice in his head telling him, _it's low blood sugar. You should eat something._

Well, he was here anyway. Digging around in his other pockets produced a ten dollar bill, so he picked a package of donuts off a shelf and went to the counter.

"Hey." He dropped his food and phone on the counter. "Do you have a phone charger I can borrow for a minute? Mine's almost dead."

The cashier didn't look up from his magazine. Hiccup waited for a minute, but the cashier reached the end of his page and turned it over to continue reading.

"Uh. Excuse me?"

No reaction.

"Hey!" Feeling a wobbly spike of irritation, Hiccup waved his hand under the cashier's nose. When that produced no response, he reached over and yanked the magazine out of his hands and threw it.

With a terrified shriek, the cashier leapt to his feet, sending his stool clattering to the floor. He backed away, staring around with wide eyes. "Hello?" he called. "Is someone there?"

Hiccup stared back, feeling cold. "You…" he tried, "you…can't see me?" Panic threatened to flood him again. For a second he felt woozy and he just wanted to fold into himself. But he was stuck at a gas station in the middle of sleepy suburbia with no way out except his own two feet, and Astrid wasn't answering his texts, so he couldn't. He couldn't stop here.

_Astrid_, was the only thought in his tired brain. _I need to get to Astrid._

He left the cashier quivering in the corner with a packet of salt clutched in his hands like a weapon, put the bill on the counter, and pocketed the donuts and a portable cell phone battery. It was a long walk to Astrid's. He tried to eat the donuts but one left his stomach churning so he shoved the rest down into his jacket pocket.

It took him over an hour — an hour of jumping at every noise and nearly making wrong turns in the dark — to reach Astrid's neighborhood. He saw only two folk along the way; the first took one look at him and flew away laughing, and the second was so busy digging through a dumpster that it didn't even spare him a second look. Hiccup was grateful that they left him alone. He didn't know what he would do if anything else happened to him tonight.

Hiccup snuck in the back gate, fetched the spare key from under a potted palm tree, and let himself in the side door to sneak up to Astrid's room. Astrid was a terrible night owl who stayed up way too late constantly, but even she was already asleep when he crept in.

Toothless was there, too, lying on the floor by Astrid's bed with his paws tucked underneath him. As Hiccup came in he jumped up and trotted to greet him with loud happy purring, rubbing all over Hiccup's legs until Hiccup finally picked him up and let Toothless rub all over his face. Hiccup scratched him behind the ears.

"Toothless," he said wearily, "what are you doing here?"

Toothless just latched onto Hiccup's neck with his paws and purred louder. Hiccup shifted him to one arm so he could wake up Astrid.

"Astrid." He tried to shake her awake, too freaked out to be nice about it. "Hey! Astrid!"

She mumbled sleepily. Her eyes flew open. "Hiccup!"

"Ohthankgod." He let out a wet gasp and slumped onto her bed. "Oh my god. Astrid."

"Hiccup, what the hell?!" She pushed herself up on her elbows and reached to turn the bedside lamp on. It flooded the room with a warm golden glow, and Astrid squinted at him. "Hiccup," she said, voice low and serious. "Why do you look like that?"

He laughed unsteadily. "Like what?"

"Like hell." Her eyes swept over him and her frown deepened. She sat bolt upright and leaned forward. "Is that _blood_ on your shirt? Wait, fuck—" She leaned even closer. "What the hell happened to your face?! You have a huge red mark all over one side of it!"

"I kinda…" He struggled for words to describe everything. "…had a fight with my dad?"

"WHAT." Her face went white and her next words were hissed through clenched teeth. "Did you do this to you?"

"Yes. No! It's—" He dragged a hand down his face. "—it's complicated. It wasn't his fault. Look, can I just stay here tonight?"

She didn't even hesitate, just scooted over in her big bed and patted the space next to her. "Or course you can."

With a relieved sigh, he curled over and rested his head on her shoulder. "Thanks."

He was tired and miserable and he so badly wanted to be angry, but the only person he could be angry with right now was himself. He'd been bitter with Jack for messing with his life, but he'd gone and ruined his own life far more thoroughly than Jack ever would have been able to. That was the worst part. This was all his fault.

Toothless leapt from his arms and settled in the spot on the mattress next to Astrid.

"I guess Toothless knew I was going to come here," he mumbled. "He was waiting for me when I came in."

"Toothless?"

"Yeah, my cat." He said that automatically, forgetting for a moment that he'd never talked about Toothless around Astrid. Maybe he'd never called him by name. Come to think of it, had he even mentioned that he had a cat?

"Your what?" she said, eyeing his strangely.

He sat up. "My cat."

"What cat?"

Hiccup looked at Toothless, who was laying on the mattress right next to Astrid, staring up at Hiccup with his big green eyes and still purring loudly, seemingly unfazed by everything else going on.

Toothless flicked an ear and twitched the end of his tail.

_Oh. Fuck. Fuck no. _

He'd never really had a chance against the fey.

That was the last straw for Hiccup. That was the last weird thing he could handle in this very long night of very weird and very bad things. His expression crumpled. He let out an exhausted, strangled sound, buried his face in his hands, and broke down sobbing.

_I'm such an idiot._

Astrid rubbed his back with wide eyes and a pinched mouth and no idea what was happening, silently freaked out. She'd known him a long time and she'd never seen him act like this. Even when his mother disappeared. Even when he was bullied for having imaginary friends. Even when he was diagnosed and sent to therapy. Never.

After a while, she asked, in a very quiet voice as if she were afraid he might break if she spoke too loudly, "do you want to, um…talk?"

"No," said Hiccup miserably. "Honestly I just want to sleep."

"Are you…wearing only one shoe?"

Hiccup took a deep breath and let it out slowly, wiping off his face. "I'll explain in the morning," he mumbled. Then, more quietly, "my cat is a fucking faery."

Toothless went quiet, watching Hiccup with his eerie eyes, but Hiccup just ignored him.

Astrid found him a clean t-shirt. By the time Hiccup had taken off his one good shoe, left his stuff on her desk, and stripped down to just the shirt and his boxers, she'd fallen asleep on the bed again, leaving a space for him. Hiccup, still ignoring his fey cat, crawled in next to her and went out like a candle flame.


	15. Brooding

AUTHOR'S NOTE: clearly i've given up inventing clever chapter titles. anyway, i was going to hold onto this chapter longer but.

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

* * *

Jack never felt the cold, but he knew the nights had been getting colder, and he could hear the rattling of dead tree leaves. From a long way off, he heard the sounds of the wild hunt but it was easy to ignore. They weren't going to find him tonight. He sat in the woods, curled among tree roots at the edge of a pond, his feet dangling into the water, half-hidden and out of sight. Ice crystals had already begun to form around his toes. The pond was still, quiet, peaceful; no other fey ever came here. Jack didn't know why he came, only that it felt right. Felt familiar, somehow.

He sighed. He shouldn't have yelled at Hiccup. He should have known better; even Hiccup, with his Sight and experience, wouldn't be immune to the charms of the Aos Sí. No human truly could be. And Hiccup had already struggled with so much because of him; Jack didn't really understand the struggles, but he knew that they put stress on Hiccup. And that was because of Jack.

And he'd yelled at Hiccup anyway. Hiccup probably hated him now.

He leaned back against the tree trunk and tried to pick the moon out from between the looming tree trunks. It was just a little sliver now, but was in the cycle of growing bigger. He couldn't see it from where he was sitting. Not even the week starlight reached him here.

A glimmer of gold appeared. In the dark, the splash of yellow was bright as sunlight, and it drifted toward him, unfurling like smoke. _Sandy_. Jack groaned. _Not now. _He didn't feel like talking.

But the little sand fey appeared walking through the clouds of sand, headed toward Jack with his eyes screwed shut and one hand stuck out so he wouldn't trip. His sand brushed the side of Jack's face; Jack batted it away.

Sandy sensed him and stopped. Moving slowly with his feet scuffing across the pine needles, he came a few careful steps closer and turned to face Jack. His hands formed signs at him. _Jack? Is that you_?

Jack gave up with a deep sigh. "Yes, I'm here, Sandy."

Sandy grinned triumphantly._ I came to find you._

"What are you doing here?" Jack shot him a half-heart glare. "Why are you holding your eyes shut?"

The grin disappeared. Sandy groped around and found a seat on the ground by Jack, settling down with a thoughtful puff of air. _Orders from Pitch,_ he signed. _Any court fey that sees you must report it back to him. _

Jack snorted. The news wasn't a surprise, but it sent a jolt of fear through him anyway that made his stomach lurch. "Smart," he commented, aiming to seem off-handed. "But why are you here then?"

Jack's fake composure didn't persuade Sandy. _I came to tell you that. Pitch knows you and your human boy got into the court. He's furious._

"So? I'm not sca—" _scared of him_, he tried to say, but the lie stuck in his throat and he broke off with a strangled choke. He shut his mouth with a snap and cleared his throat.

A wind pushed through the forest, setting the treetops swaying and needles fluttering into the pond water. Sandy's eyebrows shot up. _Did you just try to tell a lie?_ Somehow he managed to convey absolute disbelief with only the motion of his hands. _You're becoming too human, Jack Frost. _

"Ugh." Jack yanked his hood over his face and slouched down. "Just leave me alone to mope."

Sandy shook his head. _I will, but not yet. You've left the court a horrible mess. Rumors are flying._

"Oh?" Jack didn't care. He just wanted to sulk by himself.

_I've heard there's trouble with the fearlings; Pitch is struggling to get them to obey him._

That did catch Jack's attention. He sat up straighter. "What? No way. Why would they do that?"

_They would do that if their loyalty became divided._

Jack gaped. "You think… is there someone else interfering? Someone else trying to control them?" The pond lapped at his feet and he stared at the ripples, struggling to understand how that was possible. The Fearlings, the shadows, they only bowed to an intense kind of magic. No one but Pitch had commanded them for millennia.

Sandy just shrugged. _You know what else they're saying? That you're going to liberate them. That you're going to defeat Pitch and change the court for the better. _

Horror made Jack's lungs spasm. "That's—no! That's not true! They don't think I— the fearlings—!" Frost spiked across the ground, growing outward from Jack's hands, and he felt the ghost of a chill in his innards.

Sandy nodded and patted Jack's shoulder._ Oh I know. _

"I could never rule the court." Jack breathed out a cold gust of air. "I'm just not…that kind of person."

That made Sandy chuckle with a swish of sand. _No, you always were a rogue. You could never handle such responsibility._

"Hey! I resent your honesty." The retort only had half the bite it should've had_. _Jack only had half his usual energy.

A grin split Sandy's face and made his eyelids crinkle up. He shrugged as if to say, _what did you expect?_ But he quickly grew serious again. _I should be getting back to the feasts. I just came to warn you about Pitch. He knows you have the Sighted boy. _

Hiccup. For half a minute Jack had managed not to think of him, and of Pitch coming for him. "Consider me warned," he huffed.

_He's unstoppable. He's going to send more after you. Not just the fearlings. His knights are coming. _

Jack's voice tightened. "Fine. I'll be _careful_."

Sandy's brow furrowed. He could hear the stubbornness in Jack's voice and he knew there would be no way to convince him to listen at this point. With a shake of his head he gave up. _So when are you going to tell this boy what you were almost going to use him for?_

Jack groaned and yanked his hood down further. "I don't know."

Sandy rubbed at his chin, a mischievous look stealing across his face. _What kind of a boon are you going to grant him for this? _

Jack went pink. "I don't knoooooow, leave me aloooooone."

_Okay okay. _Sandy raised his hands in surrender. _I'll leave you to brood. _

"Thanks, that'd be great."

_Áwærest déaþscúa,_ Sandy signed, and turned to go.

"Æfterfolgest léoht," Jack muttered, watching Sandy vanish between the dark tree trunks from the corner of his eyes. With a sigh, he buried his face in his folded arms.


	16. Amalgamate

Halfway through the night, shrill beeping startled Hiccup awake. There was a rustling and shifting of the mattress, Astrid rolling over and fumbling for something. Hiccup's eyes blinked open to a ceiling stained with the dusky half-light of dawn. The sun wasn't even up yet.

"Wha's that?" he mumbled.

Astrid swung her legs off the bed. "Nothing, Hiccup. Go back to sleep." She got up and left the room.

"Mmmm." He was sluggish and tired, Astrid's bed was warm and soft, and he's already nested himself a hollow among the blankets. Cold air seeps in through the gap Astrid left, but she's back a few minutes later, crawling onto the mattress beside him, falling asleep again.

* * *

The next time he woke up it was hours later, and sunlight was pouring into the room. Astrid was gone. Toothless was there, though, laying in her spot half-asleep. When Hiccup turned his head Toothless blinked back through squinted eyes.

Hiccup scowled. "What are you?"

"Mer?" Toothless shook himself awake and twisted his head around at Hiccup.

"Hmph." Hiccup was more rested than he'd been in weeks, his whole body still sleepy and warm and pliant. He knuckled sleep out of his eyes, but moving brought up pain leftover from the night before. His face throbbed where he touched it, his joints ached with stiffness, his muscles burned, his feet were blistered and sore. He swallowed against tight throat muscles that made it difficult to breathe, and felt, for a second, the ghost of crazed fingers wrapped around and squeezing.

He stumbled out of the bed to Astrid's dresser mirror, shaking sleep-mussed hair out of his eyes. An angry, colorful bruise marred half his face and showed fingerprints down his neck, echoed by small bruises scattered across his arms, left there by the hunting fey and their greedy claws.

The air was chilly; an autumn cold front had moved in during the night and now he stood with goosebumps crawling across his skin. He dug through Astrid's dresser and pulled out a pair of her old sweatpants — they were a little loose around the hips and his ankles stuck out, but they worked.

In the shower, hot water rinsed away the remnants of dried blood and grime. He stayed under the stream until the water swirling around the drain ran clear, stretching out his limbs and overworked muscles until he felt better. Astrid's soap smelled like lilac but he used it anyway, grateful to be clean.

He redressed and scrubbed his hair with a towel until it stood up in all directions.

_wham!wham!wham!_

Hiccup seized up and dropped the towel. Astrid was banging on the door. "Hiccup!" she called through it. "I have food!"

He braced his hands on the counter and took a deep breath to calm his thundering heart. "It's open," he called. "You can come in. And you don't really need to yell that loudly."

"Sorry. I can't open the door, my hands are full."

Hiccup opened it. Somehow Astrid was balancing two lidded travel mugs and several plates of whipped-cream covered waffles, a bottle of chocolate syrup tucked under one arm. The waffles were doused with sprinkles and chocolate chips and looked too sugary to make a healthy breakfast.

She grinned at him. "You look terrible."

"Thanks, Astrid." Hiccup's shoulders slumped. He ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up at even weirder angles. "You always know what to say."

"You betcha. I brought sustenance."

"I see that." Cautiously, he accepted a plate. "Did you, uh, bake these?"

"Well, I toasted them. And I did the toppings!" She gestured proudly with the plates and the waffles wobbled.

Hiccup nabbed a plate before it could end up smeared across the carpet. "Oh, phew."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "There's no need to be so _rude_ about it. I can cook some things. Sometimes." She winced a little at herself and jiggled her other arm.

"I know," said Hiccup in hurry. "It looks great, thanks. Where are your parents?"

Her face soured. "At work. Where else? It's like ten thirty. Take your coffee."

He took his coffee and helped her reposition. "Why aren't you at school?"

"I called in sick. I sound a lot like my mom on the phone, you know."

They didn't bother eating the kitchen. Astrid plunked down at her desk and spread out her dishes; Hiccup sprawled out on the bed. Hiccup hadn't noticed, but he was ravenous. He hadn't eaten since…his stomach twisted. Since the fey court. He didn't want to think about that, and he shoved thoughts of bittersweet faerie fruit from his mind in favor of shoving forkfuls of normal human waffles into his mouth.

"So," said Astrid, halfway through her waffles. "What happened last night? Did you have an episode?"

Hiccup swallowed hard. "I'm not crazy," he blurted out.

Astrid's eyes widened as she realized what she'd just said. "No!" she fumbled and her fork hit the desktop. Her expression softened as she looked at him. "No, of course you're not."

For a moment he felt good: whole and safe here in Astrid's room, a place he had so many good memories of, spilling out his troubles to her as they munched on waffles and morning sunlight spilled in. Curled up warm among the blankets, the fey world couldn't reach him, couldn't touch him, couldn't harm him. A deep sigh escaped him.

"No, I mean, my hallucinations — they're real."

She bit her lip. "Hiccup, have you been missing your medication?"

"Astrid, listen." Carefully he set his half-finished plate on the side table. "Think about it. I found out my mother saw the same stuff. My dad…" His words faded for a second; he sucked in air and trudged on. "If it were really just schizophrenia, why would we have the same hallucinations? Why would they be so consistent?"

She studied him. "So why are you telling me now?"

He took a deep breath. "So much has happened. I just, I don't know what to do. Last night…" His voice trailed off. His hands twisted themselves together in his lap; he wasn't sure where to begin. "Actually, you know I talked about one particular 'hallucination' following me around for weeks?"

"Yeah?" Frowning, she pushed her half-finished plate away across the desk, intent on listening.

"And you remember last week when I asked you to come get me from the library right after you dropped me there?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, waiting for this go somewhere. "Uh-huh…?"

"I talked to him then. That's what started all this: he'd been following me around talking at me for weeks, but he didn't know I could see and hear him until I messed up and spoke to him."

As the words left his mouth, Hiccup realized that he'd been so intent on blaming Jack for barging into his life that he'd missed that it had been his own mistake that had begun it the whole time. He'd broken one of his forever rules — _don't speak to invisible faeries_ — and it had led him here.

Surprise colored Astrid's voice. "You spoke to him?"

"His name's Jack." With a deep breath, Hiccup launched into the story of the last week.

He wilted further into the mattress staring out the window as he began talking so he wouldn't have to catalogue the expressions going across her face. He let it all spill out of him, everything: from when it had begun at the library when he'd accidentally spoken to Jack, all the way up to eating faery food, getting thrown out by his dad, and almost being taken by the hunt. He knew why the hunt _hadn't_ taken him, and that was the worst part of everything.

When he finished, there was silence. He looked up from examining his hands to see Astrid staring at him open-mouthed with her eyebrows almost disappeared into her hairline.

"Holy smokes."

He managed a weak smile. "Do you believe me?"

"Fuck. Yeah, of course I do." She pushed her bangs out of her eyes. "I don't know if I want to, because if you're right, if it's all true… holy shit that's terrifying."

"I know."

She sunk down next to him on the bed and slung one arm around his shoulder. "So what are you gonna do?"

"I don't know." He folded his knees up to his chest and slumped over them with a deep sigh, burying his face. "I don't know if he's gonna come back."

"Jack?"

"Yeah. He was so mad. And he's a faery, he can't care that much…I mean, he probably just went off to hunt someone else to help him." He sighed deeply again, and Astrid shot him a suspicious sideways look.

"That doesn't _sound_ like the guy you were talking about earlier."

"Yes it does."

"No it doesn't."

Hiccup decided to ignore her; she had a stubborn look on her face that he knew too well, and arguing with her would not make her budge an ounce. She didn't know Jack anyway. "And then last night," he changed the subject, "you didn't know who Toothless was, and you didn't even see him when he was sitting right beside you, and I realized that he's a faery too. He's always been a faery. Do you know how long I've had that cat, Astrid? Do you know how much time I've spent with him thinking he was just a normal pet that my mother let me adopt?"

"Since before she…left, apparently."

"Yeah." Hiccup looked at Toothless, who was sitting on Astrid's windowsill staring outside down at the street. He'd been keeping his distance from Hiccup all morning, sneaking him covert glances every now and then as if he knew Hiccup was angry with him. Hiccup didn't know how much Toothless could understand. Maybe he could understand everything they said and knew everything already. "Eight years at least."

"Ouch."

"They've always been there, watching me, baiting me, I just thought Toothless was ordinary but I can't even…Urgh." Frustrated, he gave up trying to articulate why it hurt. "It's like… like he lied to me."

"Does he talk?" asked Astrid.

"No."

"Then maybe he can't talk," said Astrid. "Maybe he had no way to tell you."

Hiccup glared resentfully at the cat, who turned and gave him a look just then. When he caught Hiccup staring at him he immediately hunched down guilty. Hiccup hated to admit it, but he knew Astrid was probably right. He had no idea what kind of creature Toothless was; maybe he was just a magical animal.

Astrid pecked him on the cheek. "Sorry about what happened to you." He smiled a little, but then she smacked him on the back of the head. "But why didn't yOU TELL ME SOONER?"

"Ow, jesus, why are you like this…"

"Meow." Toothless let out a loud meow and leapt from the window to the bed in one smooth leap. He pounced on Hiccup's feet and stuck his paws on his shins. Hiccup didn't miss the way Astrid's gaze slid right over the cat and moved on in confusion.

"Meow!"

"Stop it," grumped Hiccup. "Just go— ow!"

Toothless had stuck his claws into Hiccup's legs. As Hiccup tried to pry him off he hung on, pulling at his sweatpants. "Meeerrrr!" Abruptly, he let go and raced back to the windowsill, pawing at the glass.

Hiccup swore horribly, startling Astrid, and stood up to see what was outside to agitate Toothless.

There was a crowd down by the gate to the Hoffersons' driveway. It was made up entirely of faeries, all of them pressed as close as they could be without touching the wrought-iron, staring through with wide eyes. Only one figure stood apart; in the middle of the driveway on the other side of the fence, a loner in bright blue, staring up wistfully from under his jacket hood.

Jack.

The breath rushed out of Hiccup. His eyes connected to Jack's through the glass of Astrid's bedroom window, and Jack flushed a blotchy pink color, lowering his head.

Toothless let out a satisfied purr and checked Hiccup for approval. Hiccup pet his head without even noticing.

Jack turned away to say something to the watchful crowd of fair folk. Whatever he said, all of them nodded solemnly, and a few immediately marched away, disappearing past the hedges in different directions. With one more glance at Hiccup, Jack trudged up the driveway toward the house.

"He's back," Hiccup said aloud.

"Who, Jack?" Astrid sprung up to peer out the window, but there was nothing out there she could see. Her face fell into scrutinization. "Where is he?" She scanned everything as if staring harder would give her The Sight.

"Coming up the driveway. I've got to go talk to him." Hiccup started toward the door but Astrid reeled him back by his sleeve.

"I want to meet him," she insisted.

"Astrid, you can't see him."

"You can intermediate!" She tightened her grip on his shirt, her expression hardening. "I'm not going to let you handle this alone anymore. I want to talk to him. There's gotta be something I can do here. I literally have a room full of metal weapons."

Hiccup fell silent staring at her whitening knuckles on his shirt and her mouth pressed thin in determination. It was what he expected from her, but he was torn. She had no idea what the fair folk were like, no idea what she would be getting into. She was tough, but…

"Fine," he said finally.

"Yes!" She released him to give him an excited punch in the arm.

He rubbed his stinging arm. "Grab whatever you think will help and meet me in the kitchen. I'll go get Jack."

She was already halfway out the door. "I'll be right back!" She called down the hallway. Hiccup felt lightness spread from his chest to his limbs. Unable to keep himself from smiling, he went downstairs.

Jack was skulking on the front porch when Hiccup opened the door. Hiccup slipped outside and shuts the door behind him, leaning against it with his hands tucked behind his back to keep from fidgeting. Jack dared a glance at Hiccup and then his eyes dropped to the ground.

"Hey," breathed Hiccup. His fingers twitched with energy and he had to fight to keep himself from beaming at Jack.

"Er," said Jack eloquently, rubbing at his ankle with one foot and still looking anywhere but at Hiccup. "Uh, listen Hiccup, I… about last night, I didn't, um…"

Hiccup stared at him. It took him a minute to realize what Jack's doing: trying to apologize without really knowing how. It was obvious: the guilt was written all over his unhappy face and hunched shoulders.

Hiccup relaxed. "You know, I'm not mad at you."

Jack raised his face. "You're not?" An uncertain, hopeful smile lit up his face as he stared at Hiccup. His hood slipped off his head and settled on his shoulders once again, leaving his hair ruffled up to catch shards of the morning sunlight.

A pang shot through Hiccup. His hands needed something to do. Before he could catch himself, he'd reached out and snagged Jack by his hoodie pocket, reeling him in and throwing his arms around him.

Jack froze in surprise, body stiff, eyes wide, so unaccustomed to being touched that for a moment he couldn't react. Then he melted against Hiccup, wrapping his arms around Hiccup's neck and leaning his cheek against Hiccup's hair.

Hiccup buried his face in Jack's neck. "I didn't think you were coming back," he mumbled, muffled. "I missed you."

A huff of laughter escaped Jack. "Thank you," he muttered back, voice warm against Hiccup's ear.

"Where did you go?"

"Does it matter? Honestly, I just went to sulk."

"You know, somehow that isn't surprising." Hiccup's body shook with a silent spasm of laughter.

"Hey!" Jack pulled away to protest when he caught sight of Hiccup's face and went still. His smile disappeared. "What…" He swallowed. His hand came up, his fingers ghosting across the tender flesh of Hiccup's cheek, featherlight across his cheekbones. "What happened to you?"

Hiccup's throat closed up and he had trouble speaking. "My…dad…"

Jack got it. "The Fearlings."

Hiccup just nodded and folded his arms in against himself. Jack sighed, looking grim. A cloud passed over the sun for a moment, washing out the light into something greyer, more somber.

"There are a lot more fair folk following me around now," said Hiccup, to move on.

"Yeah, word gets out."

Hiccup threw a look toward the crowd of folk on the other side of the gate, out of earshot. "What did you say to them?"

"I asked for their help, to keep the fearlings away from you. To protect you."

"I…oh." Hiccup didn't know what to say to that. He bit his lip and looked away, casting around for something else to say. "I told my friend Astrid about everything. I think she wants to help."

For some reason Jack snorted. "Oh, I know Astrid. I'm not surprised."

Hiccup raised his eyebrows, but he remembered that since Jack had been following him around, he'd seen a fair amount of Astrid as well. And she had a strong personality. "Yeaaaah," he said. "She might be waiting in the kitchen to talk to you?"

"Inside?" Surprise colored Jack's voice.

Hiccup just smiled and nodded. "Yeah. Come on, I can officially introduce you." He reached back, his hand found the metal knob, and he let Jack into Astrid's house.

In the kitchen, Astrid had an impressive collection of knives, daggers, short swords, axes, and other types of weaponry spread across the kitchen island and was picking over them with intense devotion. Hiccup wondered if this should concern him, but quickly dismissed the thought.

"Astrid," he said, and she looked up, reckless and eager. "This—" he gestured to the space next to him, where Jack stood. Her eyes flickered back and forth, lost. "—is Jack. Jack, this is Astrid."

Identical wicked grins split both Jack's and Astrid's faces.


	17. Meeting

Signs of breakfast were still strewn all around the kitchen: an open, half-empty eggo box, toaster plugged in, steaming espresso machine, hot chocolate powder dusted across the counters, whipped cream canister and sprinkle containers still out.

"Does he want waffles?" was, unaccountably, one of the first things out of Astrid's mouth when she officially met Jack, and there were plastic forks instead of metal ones, so Jack had waffles, metallic weapons shoved aside to make room on the island. Astrid didn't seem to notice the waffles disappearing before her eyes or the plastic fork — presumably — floating in midair. Her eyes just slid right past and focused on other things. It made Hiccup start to wonder how The Sight really worked. Were the fey truly invisible to her, or was she just incapable of noticing them? Did her eyes see while her brain refused to acknowledge?

Watching Jack sitting on a stool in Astrid's kitchen, casually eating waffles like he did this every morning, was a little weird. Like somehow Jack was the human here, and Hiccup was the inhuman creature who didn't belong. Astrid seemed a little on edge, sitting closer to Hiccup than she normally would have, her eyes roving back and forth.

Hiccup had never expected this: that he'd be able to have Astrid and Jack in the same room both aware of each other and talking to each other without anyone thinking he was crazy. He just… he just wished he were able to enjoy it more.

"Where is he?" she whispered, leaning in toward Hiccup and tugging on his sleeve.

"He's sitting right here," said Hiccup, jerking his head at Jack, "and he can hear you."

Astrid's face colored, but Jack just grinned and shoveled whipped cream straight into his mouth. "So," he said, swallowing, "she can see you."

"Yessss…" Hiccup's brain skipped through all the memories of the last twenty-four hours, where Astrid stood out in high-contrast weirdness against a background of fey and unseeing humans. "Why can she see me when no one else can?"

Astrid opened her mouth. "I was going to—" Hiccup held his hand up to stop Astrid from speaking at the same time as Jack. She made a noise in the back of her throat and pressed her mouth together.

Jack drummed his fork against the edge of his plate. "Even strong magic takes a long time to erase strong bonds."

So Hiccup might lose this, the ability to retreat to her when he needed to feel safe, the protected space of her friendship. Yet that was what was keeping him from complete invisibility. "So it's just because I've known her for so long?"

Jack shrugged.

Hiccup looked at Astrid, who squinted suspiciously back at him. "Does that mean," she said, trying to follow half the conversation, "that I might lose that? The ability to see you?" Her eyes clouded with worry.

Jack tilted his head at her, his eyes slightly narrowed as he studied her expression. "Hiccup ate food from Under The Hill," he said to her. "His humanity is going to fade."

"He said maybe," Hiccup relayed.

"You should probably tell her the rest."

Hiccup ground his teeth together and groaned.

Jack stabbed his fork into his waffle to hold it and level an unimpressed stare at Hiccup. "Did you not tell her what happened last night? With the food?"

"I _did_," said Hiccup defensively. _She just doesn't need to know about the humanity thing_. He thought it loudly at Jack, willing him to read his thoughts.

"What's going on?" Astrid scowled and glared at a spot a foot to the left of Jack's shoulder. "What are you talking about?"

Jack pulled a face at Hiccup. Hiccup grumped right back. Jack raised his eyebrows and tipped his head at Astrid, waiting on Hiccup, and Hiccup gave in with a sigh. If Astrid was going to be a part of this — and there was no way she wouldn't be now — she'd find out sooner or later.

Besides, he sucked at keeping secrets from Astrid.

"He said…my humanity is going to fade," he admitted. His gaze fell on the marble countertop. There was a scratch in it and he picked at it with one fingernail.

"Has _already started_ to fade," Jack corrected him.

Astrid talked over Jack. "So?"

"So?" Hiccup echoed in disbelief. How could she take that so calmly? Did she know what that meant? "People who eat faery food are never able to leave Faerie. They get trapped there."

On the other side of the kitchen windows, clouds continued to build up. The day grew darker. A cool breeze began to blow, pushing against the window panes, carrying with it the chill of winter. But inside, none of the three could feel the cold yet.

"But you're _here_." Astrid looked back and forth between Hiccup and the wall behind Jack in disbelief. A series of expressions chased each other across her face: incredulity, confusion, thoughtfulness, realization, dawning horror. Her mouth fell open, face stricken with worry. "Hiccup, what does that _mean_?"

He swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut just for a second. There it was, exactly what he hadn't wanted to see: Astrid realizing the full implications of what he'd done to himself last night. "Jack says my humanity is fading. No one else can see me right now, except for you."

"So find a way to fix it," Astrid demanded. "There's gotta be a way to reverse it!"

Hiccup propped his chin on his palm, tired. Tired of never knowing enough about the faery world, tired of always being caught in the wrong situation. "Astrid, I don't know how to do that."

"Jack should!" She thrust an angry finger at Jack, for once guessing his location correctly. Jack inhaled some of his whipped cream and started coughing. "What about Jack?!"

Hiccup glanced at Jack. Jack hitched up his shoulders and shrugged helplessly.

"He doesn't know how to do that either."

"BUT HE'S A FUCKING FAIRY!" Her angry shout filled the small kitchen. Her hands gripped at the edge of the countertop, knuckles whitening with the stress, and to his horror, Hiccup noticed one hand inching toward the axes.

"Astrid!" He was off his stool in a second, his hand on her arm, pulling her back. "Calm down!"

"Fine!" She wrenched herself away from his grip and forced herself to take a deep calming breath. Her shoulders went slack. "Fine," she said again, in a much more composed tone of voice. Her eyes cut away from Jack's spot, slid past Hiccup, and looked away. She was still simmering but she was in control. "So what are we doing now? What's your plan, chief?"

Unable to make Astrid meet his eyes, Hiccup looked to Jack. Jack was frozen, looking back and forth between them with his mouth pressed into a thin line.

"We have to get Jack's memories," said Hiccup, and Jack's face immediately softened.

"You're still helping me?" A smile curled back the corners of his mouth.

Hiccup's heart contracted. _Just lonely, just lonely, just lonely, _he chanted to himself, trying to ignore it. "Yes. I…might have an idea." Hiccup sat down again, rubbing his hand over his mouth. "I want to find my mother's notebooks," he said. "The other night, before my dad…" Before he what? Succumbed to possession? Lost his mind? Hiccup had no words that really summed up what had happened. "…while he was still lucid, my dad started talking about my mom."

"Ohhhh." Astrid leaned back on the island, intent on Hiccup. "Valka?"

"Huh?" Jack was clueless.

Hiccup went on. "He said she kept notebooks about the things she saw, sketches and stuff. Like I do. Did." He hadn't been drawing or writing anything about the fey for several weeks now, Hiccup realized in an afterthought. He wondered why he'd stopped… on second thought, he could probably track that to the exact second. "They're still somewhere in our attic."

Astrid, leaning in with her face lit up with eagerness, said "Alright, let's do it."

"Your mother was Sighted too?" asked Jack curiously. "What happened to her?"

"She disappeared." Hiccup's hands curled into dejected fists and he tucked them in against his sides. "About seven years ago. The anniversary is coming up, actually." His voice fell soft into the stillness. He was staring down at the countertop, so he didn't see Jack go ghostly white, set his plate down hard, and push it away from him. His widened in horror. Hiccup didn't notice. "They never found her body. She just vanished. But she left all her stuff behind, so we," he inhaled a stuttering breath, "we know she didn't just decide to abandon us."

"Oh." Jack's voice came out very hollow. Dust settled in the kitchen, leaving the air empty and cool, the way outdoors felt before a thunderstorm.

Astrid broke into the silence to raise an important question. "So you're, what, going to sneak into your own house? To go digging through the attic?"

"Uh." Hiccup cast around for a better idea, but came up empty. "Yeah?"

"Great! I'll come too," she decided. She spread the weapons across the counter top once more with a loud clatter, only narrowly avoiding Jack's leftover waffles because Jack snatched the plate out of the way and leapt back in time. Hiccup saw him sneak them into the trash, plate and all, behind his back.

Astrid started passing out weapons. "You take this." She handed a long knife to Hiccup.

He stared down at it in consternation. "What am I supposed to do with this?" Sliding it out of the sheath, the metal felt warm in his hand and left his skin tingling.

"Just keep it." Picking her way through the pile, she selected a smaller knife. "Hand this to Jack."

"No way." Jack held his hands up. "I'm not carrying metal around with me. I put up with enough of the stuff just being in Berk."

"It has a wooden handle," Hiccup offered. "Just don't touch the blade."

"I'm not taking the knife."

"He doesn't want it."

Astrid scowled ferociously and snatched it back out of Hiccup's hands. "Fine, I'll carry it, but I bet there will come a time when he will wish that he had a good knife with him." Sniffing to herself, she slid it between her boot and sock and tucked her jeans over it. Jack smothered a snort. Somehow, Astrid managed to fit three more knives and a small axe on herself. "Let me grab my jacket and we'll go," she said. "Everybody, to the car!"

Jack looked alarmed. "To the _what!_?"


	18. Undusted Memories

Hiccup had spent a life pretending the fey didn't exist, but that gave him a mirror-image fear: that he was the one who didn't exist, that they were the real world and he the illusion. It came to him in quiet, in-between moments, when no one spoke to him or noticed him.

He almost felt like that now, except for Jack. Astrid had nicked the spare key and slipped into his house to see if Stoick was there. Toothless had hitched a ride and he followed on her heels, flicking his tail. This left Hiccup alone outside. He sat huddled on the rickety porch swing, cold fingers stilled between his hands, trying to feel warmth in Astrid's thin shirt that he'd borrowed, counting the moments away in the space between his breaths, which fogged up before him. Would his father be waiting inside to attack him again?

They'd passed his neighbor Gobber on the way as he was outside raking up big fluffy piles of leave. Hiccup had waved, but Gobber's eyes had slid right past him to Astrid. It left Hiccup feeling scooped out, trapped behind a glass wall. Invisible. Unseen. Cold in ways that didn't make sense.

Hiccup slumped on the porch swing, picking at the weathered wood with his fingernails, pausing every once in a while to pull paint flecks out from under them. Jack leaned against the crooked railing opposite him, arms folded. He'd been sickened by riding in Astrid's car; his skin was still too white and he was taking slow deep breaths, but he studied Hiccup with clear eyes. Hiccup didn't feel well either; like his skin was too tight, like his lungs were too small. Couldn't breathe right. Couldn't feel right.

"So," Jack said, trying to smooth the awkward silence away, "you think your mom's stuff is gonna help us?"

"I don't know," Hiccup admitted, staring down at his feet. "I hope so. That's all I can really do at this point."

Jack's eyebrows drew together. "Hm." He shoved his hands in his hoodie pocket and turned his head away. The frigid breeze caught up the ends of his hair and ruffled them.

The silence swallowed them both up again. Hiccup was shivering, his arms clamped tight to his sides. The day had grown dark and cloudy. Swollen, dark clouds hung low above the treetops, and a chill had crept into the air. The porch swing creaked as it swayed a little every time Hiccup moved. He kept sneaking glances at Jack.

Hiccup felt small. How long until even Astrid couldn't see him anymore? How long until Jack would stop following him around and making it okay?

Jack's voice broke up his thoughts. "What's bothering you?"

A lot of things bothered him; being unseen, having the sight, his dad, his neighbors, the past… but Hiccup lifted his head to gaze up at Jack — Jack, who _did_ see him, always had — and guilt soddened his lungs, weighed down his shoulders. "I'm sorry." The words unraveled themselves from his hollow lungs, and he had to tear his gaze away from Jack's concerned eyes. "I couldn't help you."

"What?" Jack went shell-shocked, eyes wide.

"Last night. At the court. I couldn't find your memories."

"That's what's bothering you? That's—" Jack shook his head back and forth, appalled. Hands raked through his hair. "Hiccup, don't, it's not your fault. At least you got out okay."

"I don't know what else to do," went on Hiccup. His shoulders wobbled in a loose shrug. "I never even wanted to have the Sight, and now, I'm stuck in the middle of all this court stuff…" He let out a careworn sigh and sagged. "I'm really sorry. I wanted to free you."

Jack tried a weak chuckle. "Guess I'm just stuck with you."

Hiccup flinched. "Sorry."

"What? No! That's— Argh!" Jack smacked himself in the head. "I didn't mean that. Stop being sorry, at least you're safe! You got out okay!"

But Hiccup just shook his head. "No, I get it. I'm a failure."

"No. Stop." Jack leaned over to shove his face into Hiccup's, getting close, in his space without touching, forcing Hiccup to look into his eyes. "You're amazing. Really. You've done a lot…" His voice disappeared into the wind as Jack searched Hiccup's eyes, looking for the right words to say. There were none. None that could fix what Jack had done in Hiccup's life, and his mouth twisted wryly at that. He breathed out through his nose. "You put up with me." He reached out to ruffle Hiccup's hair but pulled himself back at the last moment, his fingertips brushing over the strands as light as snowflakes instead. Ice, slow and crackling, formed over the tips.

The corner of Hiccup's mouth turned up into a half-smile, against his will. "You're not so bad." If his voice came out a thicker than usual, both of them pretended not to notice.

"Yeah?"

"Maybe." Hiccup turned his head up, angled better to stare up at Jack. It pushed them closer together until their noses touched. Jack sucked in a breath. Hiccup had to bite his lip. _Touch starved, touch starved, touch starved…_ he chanted mentally to himself. _Maybe I should tell him to back off a little._ He took a deep breath. "Listen, I don't think—"

The front door clicked open. Jack and Hiccup jerked away from each other as Astrid stuck her head through. The swing let out a loud protest of squeaky hinges at the sudden movement. "Coast's clear," she said, zeroing in on Hiccup. Her eyes narrowed. "What were you doing?"

"Nothing!" Hiccup and Jack blurted out at the same time. Hiccup gave Jack a weird look and Jack flushed bright pink. The unspoken _she didn't even see you_ floated in the space between them.

Astrid eyed Hiccup for another moment. "Uh huh…" she said, seemingly unsatisfied. "Okay, whatever. Your dad's asleep in his room and he's pretty dead to the world, so I think you're good to come in."

"Right." Hiccup rose and followed Astrid inside, trying not to look at Jack, who snagged the back of his shirt to be towed in.

Like all attics, the Haddock attic was dusty, small, and cramped, stuffed full of sagging cardboard boxes and lit up by only one dim yellow light bulb. Hiccup tensed at every shadow, but they fled from him with only a faint _hisssshhhh_ and vanished; no dark shapes reached out toward him, nothing crept around or whispered in his head.

The three of them knelt of the plywood planks that stretched across the rafters and went through everything. Jack kept sneezing at clouds of dust that they stirred up as they opened the box flaps. The boxes were old, had been in that attic untouched for years, and they were coated in a thick layer of grimy dust, many of them riddled with holes left behind by rats or mice. Toothless leapt in and out of boxes, appearing and disappearing between them like the attic storage was a big cat castle specifically for him.

"Why aren't any of these labeled?!" Astrid griped, shoving an open box away from her. "This is just old clothes."

"Here's some notebooks!" Elbows-deep in another box, Jack's face brightened and then fell in the next moment. "But they're just labeled stuff like 'language arts' and 'math'…" He cracked the 'math' one open. "Ugh, what is this?"

"That's not it," said Hiccup quickly. It was some of his old school work. Jack didn't need to go through that.

There was a muffled snort from Astrid. "Hey Hiccup, where's Jack?" Hiccup pointed to him without thinking, which he regretted as Astrid launched a thick, heavy leather-bound photo album through the air, yelling, "Jack! Catch!"

Jack snagged it and flipped it open, crinkling the plastic. "What is… oh my spirits, is this you?!" He cackled in delight. "You were adorable!"

"Oh gods, let me see." Hiccup leaned over to peer over Jack's shoulder at the photos. They were from halloween over a decade ago, faded and desaturated but still clear pictures. Tiny, five-year-old Hiccup in a purple dragon onesie posed among a pile of jack-o-lanterns, chewing on his sleeves. "Give me that!" He grabbed at the album but Jack snatched it out of reach.

"Never!" Before Hiccup could do anything else, Jack shoved it under his hoodie and folded his arms over the lump. "I'm keeping this forever."

Hiccup turned a bright red and flopped back in defeat with a groan. "I hate you for this," he said to Astrid, staring up at the ceiling at the warped support beams.

She didn't even need to ask what Jack had done; she just grinned. "Did he find the one of you dressed as Thumbelina?"

Sputtering in indignation, Hiccup turned his back on the both of them and pulled Toothless out of the box so he could ignore Jack's giggling. Toothless clawed at the box flaps. When Hiccup pulled them open, he leapt out and paced around it, purring loudly and watching Hiccup unpack it.

It was full of old documents. Junior high graduation papers, his parents' marriage license… Hiccup set everything aside in a careful pile, dust accumulating on his palms. Honestly, he should have known better than to introduce Astrid and Jack. Those two were terrible forces of mischief even in their own separate worlds. Putting them together could only result in mischief on a greater scale, and Hiccup should've…

He blinked down at the notebook in his hands. It was old and stiff; he'd been spacing out as he skimmed it, mistaking the pencil strokes in it for his own, but… it was full of scribblings and sketchings of the fair folk that Hiccup had never seen before.

"Guys?"

The noises of fawning behind him trampled over his distracted murmur.

Heart beating loudly in his ears, Hiccup dove back into the box and reemerged clutching a whole stack of similar notebooks. He gazed down at them in awe, mouth open in silence. Every page of them was crammed with doodles and notes in a hand and style so similar to his own…

These had been his mother's.

He found his voice. "Guys! I found them!"

Jack and Astrid crowded around, all excitement, all reaching hands and overlapping shouts of "lemme seee!"

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh," Astrid said, turning the pages over gingerly. "Yessssssssss…"

"Whoa." Jack let one fall open on his lap, staring down at the drawings of fair folk on the yellowed paper. "She really did have the Sight." He touched one drawing of a pixie with reverent fingers.

There was a moment of silence, dust settling as they all processed. Hiccup couldn't believe it; he'd been cut off from everything about his mother for years and _these_ had been in boxes right over his head the whole time. A spark of anger at Stoick flared in his chest, then flickered out just as fast as he remembered what state Stoick was in, and whose fault that was.

Astrid shut the notebooks with a _fwip!_ sound. "Let's not go through these here. It's too small. And dusty."

Right on cue, Jack sneezed. He rubbed his nose, squinting at Astrid. "Where are we going then?"

"Where are we going?" Hiccup echoed for him.

"I want food."

"But you just ate—"

"I said I want food."

"Alright, alright." Hiccup held up his hands in surrender. "Let's get food." He gave in easily; the unspoken sense that he shouldn't linger in this house any longer than he needed hung over his head, the memories of what had last happened here still as fresh as his bruised flesh.

Before they left, Hiccup dug up a duffel bag, tossed in some clean clothes and supplies from his room, and put on another pair of shoes. The house suffocating, full of shadows and thick, oppressive silence, the feeling of being watched following him, and the weather's chill had seeped through the walls. It gave Hiccup goosebumps. He scurried out quicker than he needed to, hunching up his shoulders and throwing a glance backward as he went.


	19. Afternoon Planning

A half-empty McDonald's parking lot. An impatient October wind. A pixie riding it swooped low over the parked cars to join a crowd of fey lurking around the windows of the restaurant. It landed, tried to shoved its way to the window between two trolls with their noses pressed to the glass, and was swatted away. Buzzing angrily, it swerved to sit on a slide in the playpen, but the elf already sitting there gnashed its teeth. The pixie spat back. With no place to settle, it vaulted the playpen fence and zipped towards the front doors. Several human customers were exiting the McDonalds, carrying food and drinks, and the pixie, cackling madly, flew straight at them.

The pixie upended a cup. A large coke tipped over and went down a girl's front. She let out a shriek at the cold.

On the other side of the glass panes, Hiccup saw the whole interaction and grimaced. The pixie caught sight of his expression and looked ashamed of itself for a half a second. It buzzed away.

"Ugh, these are all just drawings." Astrid, sitting across from Hiccup and Jack, was the only one with her back to the windows. "This is so not helpful." She took an annoyed bite out of her burger.

The three of them were crowded into the least visible — to humans — corner of the McDonalds. Hiccup and Jack had smooshed into the booth half of the table. Hiccup was nursing a hot coffee between his thin hands. Jack had shadows under his eyes; he'd ridden in Astrid's car again and the metal was starting to get to him, the iron-poisoning making him look pale and tired.

They each had a different notebook in front of them and were slowly coming through the pages, searching for anything that might help them, but so far the notebooks had been unyeilding. Hiccup scraped a hand down his face, then winced as his fingers dig into the bruise that he'd forgotten about. His faint hiss of pain drew Jack's attention.

"Sorry," Hiccup muttered, peering at Jack through his fingers.

Jack tugged his hand down. "Hey, let me see your face."

"What? No. Why?"

"I'm not exactly an expert," said Jack, "but I'm still one of the aos si." He raised his hand to Hiccup face and—

_dark 2am hallway, Stoick looming in the shadows, a snap-fast fist coming at him_

—Hiccup flinched away, sucking in a breath.

Jack frowned and lowered his hand. "Are you okay?" His hand was still wrapped around his Hiccup's wrist, his fingers cool against Hiccup's skin. Hiccup focused on the feeling to bring himself back into the moment.

Across the table, Astrid stared at him in concern. "Hiccup? Are you okay?"

His face heated up with shame. "Fine," he muttered. He didn't look at either of them.

"Hiccup," said Jack in a low, calm voice, "I'm going to touch your face."

Hiccup's muscles tensed up and he tried to force them to relax again. "Fine," he gritted out.

Jack's fingertips were cool on his bruise, the touch light and careful. A thumb against his jaw, three fingers along his cheekbone, a pinky on his forehead, brushing in a long slow motion, and a weird feeling bloomed under Hiccup's skin; both cold and hot, it tingled a bit, and then faded. Jack pulled away. "Better."

Hiccup touched his face. It wasn't tender anymore, just a little sore. "What did you do?" he blurted out, staring at Jack.

Jack smiled. "Helped, I hope," he said with a shrug. "I've never done but healing magic, but…"

Even Astrid could see a difference. "What just happened?" she said with interest, leaning across the table to peer at Hiccup. "Your face looks better."

Jack gave Hiccup a grin that said he was very pleased with himself, still sitting too close.

Hiccup's entire face felt hot. "Faery magick, apparently," he muttered. He bent back over the pages in front of him.

Hiccup's mother had been the type of person to date her notebooks, luckily, and they began their search for answers in the earliest sketchbooks and notebooks.

Hiccup studied each page, each sketch and doodle, each cramped note, with slow and hungry amazement. It was all so similar to the way he'd kept his own sketchbooks; she looped her S's the same way he did, the lines of hands curved the same way. But he could see subtle differences; the dots of her i's were stabs, she'd drawn eyes with more softness to them.

Valka clearly hadn't had the same reserve with the fey that Hiccup had. She'd drawn them up close and personal; they were sketched in all sorts of familiar poses, their expressions telling, like she'd known them personally.

In particular, sketches of a fey girl with feathers growing in her hair repeated through the pages. Valka had known her: there were several sketches of the girl sitting in rooms that Hiccup recognized from his own house. Here she was sitting in an armchair in their living room. Here she was hovering in the kitchen.

As they combed further through the dry pages, their hands growing stained with pencil graphite smudges, little notes and bits of writing began to appear next to drawings. Things like:

_to find something lost: stick a pin in the sofa _

_lavender under the pillow helps with bad dreams _

…and other such odd little spells littered the pages. Hiccup folded down the corners of the pages to keep track of them, thinking they might come in useful someday.

For a while, there was only silence in their corner, broken only by pages being flipped over and occasional excited murmuring.

"…trolls under bridges…no that doesn't help…"

"…whoa, kelpies are a thing…"

"…haha, she drew that obnoxious little sprite from the library, I hate that little bugger…"

In a surge of energy, Jack surged forward and smacked his hand on the table. Hiccup jumped, which made Astrid jump and stare around wildly.

"Found something!" Jack declared. He spun around the sketchbook in his hand — very creased and covered in graphite smudges — so that Hiccup could read it right side up. "It's a spell."

It was a page full of cramped writing, with a paragraph and list of ingredients like a recipe. It was messy. The top read 'serum to give The Sight!' and Valka had scrawled, 'try to give to Stoick?' Hiccup wondered why she never had given it to Stoick, then caught sight of the date in the corner: October 22. This had been written one week before she'd disappeared. No wonder why.

"Well this is something, but maybe we can try it," Hiccup said. "You think we should try it on—"

"—Astrid?" Jack finished. His gaze slid towards her, eyes glittering. The line of his mouth went tense; things he didn't feel allowed to ask building up in his lungs. Hiccup could tell. Jack wanted to ask. "Do you think she…?" he began.

"Astrid? She'll jump on it." Before Jack could react, Hiccup slid the sketchbook across the table toward her.

She was already staring at them — at him, rather — waiting impatiently, and she caught it before it could slide over the edge. "What's this?"

"An idea."

At the sight of the title, her eyes widened. She latched on, fingers curling over the edges of the cover. Her lips moved silently as she scanned it. She cleared her throat. "You think we could? Eyebright, mugwort, mushroom from a faery ring — how are we going to get all this stuff?"

"Those are just plants," said Hiccup. He leaned forward too, excited at the possibility. "I don't know about the mushroom—"

"We can ask one of them." Jack pointed out the window toward the group of fair folk who were clustered out there watching them. "I bet one of them would do it."

"What? No," Hiccup protested. "Why would they?"

"After what happened in the court? We're a little bit famous. And they don't like Pitch."

Hiccup's gaze cut sideways at the windows, watching the fey from the corners of his eyes. He chewed on his lip. "I don't know…"

"What'd he say?" Astrid demanded. She was starting to work out when Jack was talking based solely on Hiccup's behavior. She still kept staring into space around Hiccup, only sometimes looking in the right place for Jack.

"He thinks I should ask one of the fair folk that's been following us."

Astrid's back went rigid. "There are faeries following us?!" She turned around in her chair as if she could spot them with their eyeballs pressed up against the glass, noses smushed. Some of the folk saw her and actually did that: made faces at her, stuck out their tongues. But her eyes swept right past them and she spun back around to Hiccup.

"Yeah, seems like there are always are." Hiccup propped his chin against his palm with a weary sigh. He glared at the rude folk.

Jack leaned toward Hiccup and touched his sleeve. "You don't have to talk to them. I'll do it," he offered in a low voice.

Hiccup nodded. "That would… be better. Thanks."

Without another word, Jack slid out from the booth and went outside. He pushed open the double glass doors and half the fey immediately scattered, vanishing so fast that Hiccup couldn't see where they'd gone.

Jack stepped outside. The rushing wind tossed his hair; it was cold but that never bothered him. Folk scattered before him; even after word of his rebellion must have spread, he was still bound to Pitch and brought fear of his master wherever he went. Other folk knew he could be a danger to him.

Half the folk stayed, eying him warily. A pointy-eared elf sitting on the brick wall, legs dangling, gnashed its teeth at him. "What do you want?" it hissed.

Jack drew himself up to his full height and glared at the elf. "I'm here as an emissary of The Sighted One," Jack said. A murmur went through the small group of folk; a few of the smaller ones bowed in awe.

"Then you must know," said a pixie, cunning gleaming in its eyes, "if the rumors are true. Is he going to free us?"

Jack's stomach flipped over, but he ignored it. "He asks a favor. We are working on something. Something that will help," he added. It wasn't a lie, not technically. He didn't say who it would help. "But we need something from Faerie. Will one of you go on an errand?"

There was silence. The folk shifted awkwardly and avoided his eyes. Finally, a small fey boy only a few feet tall stepped forward. "I will go on this quest," he said grandly, bowing. "What does The Sighted One require?"

Jack stifled a giggle. "Only a mushroom from the edge of a faerie ring."

A pixie squealed. "He is working a spell then!"

"Yeah," said Jack. "Sure."

The fey boy bowed again. "It will be done." And then — _zip!_ — he was gone in a _whoosh_ of air.

Back inside, Astrid was still combing through the spell. "What's a witchstone?" she said. "It says to pass all the herbs through one before adding them."

On the bench beside Hiccup, Toothless perked his ears up. "Mreo?" he asked, raising his head. In one fluid motion, he unfurled himself and leapt onto the table.

Hiccup ignored him. "I don't know." He drummed his fingers on the table, restless. "Let's just worry about the other stuff first."

"Mer!" Toothless turned an anxious circle on top of the sketchbook pages with the spell, confusing Astrid a great deal as the paper crinkled up, and then paced over to Hiccup and placed a paw on his face. "Meeerrr!" he said again, more urgently.

"What." Hiccup stared flatly into his cat's yellow-green eyes. "If you're hungry steal some of Astrid's food."

Toothless swatted him on the nose. "Mooow!" He snagged a french fry off Astrid's food tray, then turned and leapt off the table. Still carrying his single, soggy french fry, he darted out the glass front doors just as Jack was coming in. Toothless let out an impatient growl and Jack stood back, holding the door open for the cat as he trotted off, tail waving.

"Where's he going in a hurry?" Jack slid back inside and a gust of wind clanged the door shut behind him. The blast of cold disturbed an old man two tables over, who straightened his newspaper with a grumble and disappeared behind it.

"I don't know," said Hiccup. "Out, I guess. I don't really know anything about him anymore."

Jack frowned at that, but said nothing. He snagged Astrid's McFlurry and slid back into his seat beside Hiccup, licking the spoon.

"Jack's back," Hiccup said, somewhat unnecessarily, since she was carefully watching him speak to thin air.

She just shook her head. "Okay," she began, with the air of a woman coming up with a plan. She had her phone out on the table next to the notebook and was googling with one hand. "Obviously the powdered egg shell won't be too hard, we have eggs at my house… faery tears, Jack can supply those, I'm _assuming_…"

Jack looked disgruntled but didn't deny it.

She went on. "It'll be hard to find a four leaf clover but we might be able to…and rainwater…where are we going to get rainwater? It rained four days ago."

"Do you know anyone who has an empty pool?" Hiccup suggested.

"No," said Astrid. "We have a birdbath in the garden, though, maybe there's still some in there. We'll have to check. The rest of this is just, like, spices and stuff. I think we have most of it in the kitchen. And that's it. Except for the witchstone, we can probably get all this. It has to be applied at either dawn or dusk. If we're quick, we could have it done by tonight and I could start seeing the fey."

"I don't know," said Hiccup, doubtful. "What will that do?"

Astrid leaned forward until her feathered blonde bangs fell over one eye. "Hiccup, it's all we've got." She gazed at him, earnest and intent. "I mean, what else are we gonna do? It's not like we have any better ideas."

Astrid and Jack both stared at him, watching, waiting. Hiccup looked back and forth between them. He took a deep breath. "Okay," he said.

Their grins lit up their faces.

"Yes!" Astrid pulled the page toward her to read. "Okay, I think we probably already have the celery seed and orris root…and maybe the eyebright. And mugwort? That's a spice right?"

"I have no idea."

"If it's a spice, we have it."

"Why?"

"Hiccup." Astrid grabbed him by the shoulders to stare into his eyes. "Ask yourself, are my parents the type of people to have an elaborate spice collection just for appearances? The answer is yes. Yes they are."

He raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. Do you also have four leaf clovers in your magical spice collection? Because I doubt it."

"No. So we'll have to find one." Thoughtful, she chewed on the end of her straw. "Where's a good place to look? Tam Lin Park has a lot of grass, let's check there."

Jack interjected. "Did she say Tam Lin Park?" he asked in mild interest. "That's…huh."

"So, to the park, then my house to start brewing."

"Yes," said Hiccup, with the feeling of agreeing to something ominous.

"Great!" She smacked the table in excitement. "We have a plan!"

"That's it?" echoed Hiccup. Astrid looked at him; he stared back. He turned and looked at Jack. Jack looked back at him, and shrugged. "Great," he said. "So we have a plan. Let's go."

Jack grinned and shoved oreo ice cream into his mouth. "This stuff's better than I thought."

Astrid looked around in confusion. "Where'd I leave my McFlurry?"

"Jack has it."

"Make him give it back!" Astrid swore. "That little—"


	20. Pistachios

Whole Foods was the most likely place to find herbal stuff in Berk. Standing in the middle of the aisles, Astrid was hyper-aware of the comfortable weight of the hidden weapons she wore under her clothes. They pressed against her skin, familiar. She refused to fear the Fair Folk, no matter what Hiccup said or thought. She wanted to See. So she stalked up and down the aisles hunting for the ingredients she'd seen on that page of the journal.

Hiccup shadowed her. Since he was invisible to everyone else (and wasn't that just _fantastic_), she had to pretend she couldn't see him, but she watched him from the corners of her eyes. He looked thin and shadowed, the bright florescent lighting washing him out, leaving him paler than usual.

He'd had always been nervous and fidgety, but now that he'd told Astrid the truth about his Sight, it was different. Every flinch and twitch had meaning now: he was ignoring something unSeeable.

He'd always been bad at looking people straight on. His eyes slid away, not staring for too long, flickering here and there. Now, every time he did it, she had to stop herself from whipping around to stare, knowing there was something fey there. She wanted to know what he Saw.

_I wonder how much longer I'll even be able to see him,_ she wondered as she turned a bottle of some spice over in her hands. Already, staying aware of him seemed an effort. If she let her mind wander, his presence faded away from all awareness until she forgot he was there. She didn't remember him until he spoke. She had to be careful not to start chattering at him in the middle of the grocery store. It was maddening.

"I can't believe my parents didn't have celery seed," she muttered to him out of the corner of her mouth. He shrugged.

His eyes slid sideways. "No. I don't know. Just put it back."

_What is Jack doing?_ She wanted to ask but another customer was walking down the other side of the aisle, a middle-aged woman in a cardigan, ambling slowly as she perused the bins of bulk goods with a grocery list in-hand.

Astrid tried to focus on the endless rows of spice bottles with their little green labels. There were too many spices here; why did there have to be such a wide selection? She felt like she was reading the labels over and over again.

"Just stop touching things," hissed Hiccup. Astrid almost jumped. She glanced at him over her shoulder to see him looking very stressed. He pinched his mouth together and shook his head at her.

Astrid liked this Jack guy already. She smothered a grin and turned to the shelves again. Pumpkin spice…that was a thing they sold?…oregano…celery seed… _wait, we need that one!_

"Got it," she whispered, soft enough that the other woman in the aisle wouldn't hear.

Hiccup heaved a relieved sigh. "Thank god," he muttered.

Just then, a lever on one of the bulk bins went down — seemingly of its own accord — and organic pistachio nuts spilled everywhere. They piled up on the shelf underneath,then spilled over across the floor with little _rat-a-tat-a-tat_ sounds, bouncing and shooting every which way across the fancy fake-rock texture ceramic tiles. The endless stream of nuts kept coming until the entire contained finally emptied itself out, and one final nut fell out, bounced off the pile, and went skittering away across the floor under the rest of the bins. Everything fell silent.

Astrid stared at the pistachios. The other woman in the aisle stared at them. Astrid looked up. The other woman stared at Astrid.

"'Sup," said Astrid. She tossed the woman a peace sign and power-walked away down the aisle, onward to the herbs and supplements section. Behind her, Hiccup was muttering very quickly into thin air. It was hard to tell, but he sounded both annoyed and amused.

"We'll meet you outside," he said, louder. He was gone almost before Astrid could nod at him, presumably taking Jack along with him. Astrid heaved a relieved sigh and continued her hunt for eyebright, orris root, and mugwort.

Next on the list was the four leaf clover. Astrid wound up crawling around on the lawn of Tam Lin Park on her hands and knees, peering at every little plant she could find that wasn't grass. It was hardly more than a cramped patch of grass next to a swingset, a slide, and a couple shabby picnic tables, but it was closest to her house and Berk had nothing better to offer. Her hands and knees grew covered in dirt and green stains. It was growing cold; she was glad she'd brought a sweater, even if it was getting filthy.

Where Hiccup sat, the grass was dry, brittle, and brown. She stared at it. Dead grass circled him; next to him there was a spot covered in glittering white frost. _What the hell…was it like that before?_

"Are you cold?" she asked him.

He shrugged. He was wearing his own hoodie that he'd taken from his house earlier. "I'm okay."

On the tiny playground a little ways off, several young mothers sat at a picnic table while their children crawled on the equipment. The mothers kept shooting Astrid weird looks, muttering among themselves. Astrid cast them a glare and turned her back on them.

Hiccup was building up a pile of ripped grass at his elbow. It stained his fingertips green. He glanced at Astrid. "Why are you scowling?"

"There's too many damn three leaf clovers." Astrid tossed yet another one away from herself, in the direction of the nosy suburban moms.

"I know," Hiccup agreed. His eyes flickered across the playground and turned downward.

Astrid felt the skin on her neck prickle and took a breath.

Hiccup focused back on her. "But there's going to be a four leaf. We'll find it."

"Who says? Jack?"

Hiccup snorted.

Astrid grinned at him. _…those pistachios nuts…_ She smothered a laugh. She could imagine how hilarious it must have been for Jack, standing unSeen in the middle of them: the cause of the commotion but undetectable as the source, watching the astounded looks on their faces.

Between the three of them — two that Astrid could see — an aura of excitement permeated the air. She couldn't help the rising bubbling hope in her chest, even as she picked through bits of plants and dirt. Astrid would get to See, the same way Hiccup could. She couldn't wait. She wanted to meet Jack in the flesh.

Questions bubbled up inside her, so many questions. "Are all the fey friendly like Jack?"

"No! No. Nooooo." Hiccup looked horrified at the idea of it.

"Ah." Astrid frowned. "What are they like then?"

"Uhhhh…" Hiccup considered this, his eyes downcast so that the sunlight glanced over his face without illuminating what he was thinking. "Capricious," he said at last.

"What was the court like? Did you talk to any of them?"

"Er…Astrid." Hiccup dropped a handful of grass and wiped bits of leaves off his hands. "Listen. I know you think this is all very exciting, but…they're _dangerous_. You can't trust them. Ow." He rubbed his arms and glared off into space at Astrid's left. "Okay, you can't trust most of them."

"I think I can handle it."

"I mean, sure you _probably_ can. You're Astrid. But…do you remember Heather? Heather Snarkson?"

"What?" Astrid had never heard that name in her life. "No. Who-?"

"She was in our class. She sat next to your in bio. You were friends with her, Astrid."

"Okay, now you're just-"

"The fey took her."

A cloud passed over the sun. A breeze swept through the trees around the park, rustling the branches and sending down a shower of dead leaves.

"A few months ago, and everyone in Berk forgot she even existed or was ever just do that sometimes. They take people."

"That's-" Astrid's mouth was dry; she licked her lips with a nervous tongue. "They can't just-"

"They do." Hiccup's voice went hard. "What do you think happened to my mother?" He looked away from her, down at his hands in his lap, absent-mindedly running his fingers through the lawn again.

_Oh my god._ _Valka_ _was… _Astrid swallowed. "But why?"

"For fun. They're inhuman. Most of them have no concept of morals or empathy."

_They won't get me though._ Astrid's gaze strayed into the space where she knew Jack was sitting, where the grass was frosty white. "What about your faery? Jack?"

A soft, fond look came into Hiccup's eyes. "More human than most."

_Does he like…oh my god._ _Ohhhh_ _my god, he likes the faery._ Astrid let this pass without comment since she knew Jack was there, but she made a mental note to absolutely drill Hiccup about it later as soon as she knew they were truly alone. "Uh-huuuuuh," she said out loud.

"Find any four leaf ones yet?" said Hiccup quickly.

Astrid sighed. "No," she admitted . "Nothing yet." A man walking his tiny chihuahua past the park stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to give her a strange look for talking to herself. Astrid stared back at him. "What?" she demanded when he didn't immediately say anything.

"Don't you have school?" he asked.

"No." She glared at him until he tugged on his dog's leash and scurried away. "And mind your own business!" Annoyed, she ripped up a handful of the lawn without checking it and threw it after him. As the little bits and pieces of vegetation flew threw the air, she spotted a clover in the middle of it. "Ah!" Her shout startled Hiccup. She dove for the clover, grabbed it before it became lost on the ground again, clutching it between her fingers. "Got one! Yes!" Excited, she punched Hiccup's arm with her free hand.

"Finally." Hiccup rubbed at his arm, smiling.

When they drove back to her house, they found Jack's little messenger fey waiting for them on the front porch. Hiccup grabbed Astrid's arm to stop her before she barreled it over on her way to the door.

It bowed low at their approach and held out its hand. A large speckled mushroom rested on its palm between curled fingers. "Your mushroom, my lord," it said to Hiccup, peeping up at him.

"Uh." Hiccup sputtered and turned red.

Jack stepped in front of him. He bowed back to the fey. "He thanks you for your service." Behind his back, his hand flapped at Hiccup. Hiccup clamped his mouth shut.

The little fey bowed deeply again, almost falling over in its enthusiasm. "I am happy to provide it." It seemed very pleased with itself as it flew off again and disappeared beyond the gate.

"Why is he calling me that?" Hiccup muttered. He gave Jack a desolate look and motioned for Astrid to unlock the door. Jack handed the mushroom over to Hiccup, who in turn passed it to Astrid. "We have our special mushroom," he told her.

She raised her eyebrows at it. "Oh, is that what just happened."

"I told you, there have been, um, rumors." Jack answered Hiccup's question. He pursed his lips and looked away. They traipsed after Astrid into the house.

They trailed after Astrid into her house again. She parked them at the kitchen island. "Wait a second." She disappeared out the back door. A few moments of silence passed.

"Do you think this will work?" Jack whispered.

Hiccup glanced up at him; Jack looked thin and worn down, dark circles under his eyes, hair drooping over his forehead, skin greyish from being exposed to so much human metal. "…yeah," said Hiccup. "Of course it will work."

Jack's mouth twisted and he opened it to say something, but Astrid interrupted him as she barged back in through the door.

"Okay," she announced. She set down a glass jar half full of greyish water, little bits of leaves swirling around the bottom of it. "Rainwater from the bird bath. I think we have almost everything." Hands on her hips, she surveyed everything they had collected, laid out across the marble counter top: the celery seed, orris root, eyebright, mugwort, their crumpled four-leaf clover, the mushroom, the rainwater. "We're just missing the stone thing. I checked google. Did you know that you can order witch stones from people? They say they're real, but either way it would take almost a week to get one sent here, and I don't know where in Berk to find one naturally." As she was talking, she pulled an egg out, cracked it into a cup, and put the innards of it back into the fridge.

"We don't have enough time for that," said Jack, blanching. He leaned against the island and scraped a hand through his hair. The unsaid threat loomed over them: _Pitch is coming…_

"We'll do it without the stone," said Hiccup firmly. "It'll be fine."

Astrid was rifling through cabinets with a great deal of banging and clanging.

Every glass container that the Hoffersons' had appeared on the island: mason jars, Pyrex measuring cups, glass bowls. Astrid pulled her hair back and they opened the bottles that they'd gotten from Whole Foods, cracked open the capsules for eyebright and mugwort, carefully sliced off a portion of the mushroom. They poured off the top of the rainwater that was clearest into a Pyrex and boiled in the microwave. Jack watched them with his fingers holding one eye open, slowly coaxing the eye to water.

"I think we're ready for you," Hiccup whispered to Jack. Between he and Astrid on the island counter was the Pyrex of potion, a simmering cloudy grey.

Jack caught a couple tears on the tips of his fingers and shook them into it. It hissed a little, remaining the same color. They all stared at it. "What now?" asked Jack. "It's too early to actually use it." It was still light outside, late afternoon; the sun was still up.

The distinct sound of tires on the gravel driveway alerted them to an approaching car. "Ah, fuck, someone's home." Astrid's eyes darted around and she shoved the potion into the nearest cupboard. "Go upstairs, we'll do this later." She shooed them both toward the stairs as she went to the front door.

Jack and Hiccup fled upstairs. Behind them they heard the door open, then the voice of Astrid's mother. "Oh, you're home, sweetie. Did you already do your homework? Here, I brought takeout, I'll leave you some in the fridge. I can't stay around, I have to—"

Hiccup shut the room to Astrid's door with a click and the voice became too muffled to understand anymore.

"Is she gonna leave again?" Jack stood in the middle of the room turning around for a second, restless with impatience, then bounced off the edge of Astrid's bed and let himself drift to the ceiling.

Hiccup felt restless too; he went to window and stared down at the new car in the driveway. "Sounded like it. Astrid's parents are never around much. They really just sleep here."

"That's why Astrid is so lonely," said Jack from the ceiling.

Hiccup's craned his neck to look at him.

Jack seemed to read his expression and shrugged upside down. "I watched her too, sometimes. Mostly because she's your friend. But I like her too."

"I know," said Hiccup. "I just didn't realize you were so…"

"Perceptive?"

"I guess." He turned away. They fell silent.

Astrid's mother came and went, but before they could creep downstairs again, Astrid's father pulled in. For a little while they could hear him downstairs, every once in awhile saying something to Astrid. The house fell quiet; the shadows grew long against the orange sunset light. As the light was disappearing into blue-grey gloom, footsteps came up the stairs and continued on past them down the hall. A minute later Astrid was cracking open the door.

"Finally," she said, motioning them out. "Just in time. I thought he was never going to go to sleep, he took forever. Come on."

They moved with only illumination from the overhead sink light to guide them as they gathered around the kitchen island again. Their faces, swimming in the darkening reflection of the window over the sink, looked ghostly. Hiccup's freckles stood out stark against his skin.

Jack hovered around Astrid, not seeming to know what to do with himself, until he finally settled down on a stool right across from her, twisting his hands in his hoodie pockets.

Astrid licked her lips and tapped the edge of the Pyrex dish. "Here goes nothing."

They all held their breath as she dipped one finger into the liquid, wiped it on the edge of her lower eyelids - one eye and then the other. She blinked several times, looked around. Her mouth twisted up into a moue of confusion.

"Maybe…maybe it takes time to work?" Jack's voice trembled in the air and hung there for several threatening seconds.

"I don't see anything," said Astrid. Her voice, too, was tight and nervous.

Hiccup looked between them. Astrid's eyes were wandering, desperate and seeking, but still going straight through Jack as though her were nothing but ghost. Jack stared back at her with his mouth pressed into a thin line.

There was a sinking, constricting feeling in Hiccup's chest. "It didn't work." His voice sounded defeated. "We didn't have the witch stone."

For a moment, no one moved.

Astrid rammed her fist against the marble countertop. "Damn it!" she shouted. Jack and Hiccup both jumped. She swung around and left, punching the door frame on her way out, hard enough to leave small dents in the wood where her knuckles collided. "Ugh!" She stomped upstairs and slammed her bedroom door.

Hiccup didn't follow her. He knew better. She needed a little time to cool off; then she would rant and rave, talk to him, they'd work something out and both feel better. Right now he felt sick.

He buried his eyes against his palms with a tired sigh.

There was so little time left. It felt like he was always running from it, running out of it, running with an ending snapping at his heels - yet they always seemed to be waiting for things. Now they would have to wait for a witch stone, and start everything over again. There wasn't enough _time_. How was he supposed to help Jack like this? Just him? The only one who could See? He tried once and failed. He'd just tried once more and failed. What now? He couldn't do anything. He was only Hiccup. Only human.

"I'm sorry." He looked up, but no one answered him. The sun had gone down. It was completely dark now; he was alone in the silent, empty kitchen. _When did Jack leave?_ Hiccup hadn't even noticed him going. The glowing microwave clock read 8:24; he'd been sitting there for over an hour. Time had slipped away.

_I can't do this…_

Moving with slow, tired movements, Hiccup stood up and crept upstairs. When he cracked open the door to Astrid's room, she was already in bed, either asleep or faking it. He pulled off his shoes, slipped in under the covers next to her, curled up with his forehead resting against her back. Despite his breathing slowing to match hers, deep and even, it takes him a long time to fall asleep. And in the time in between, he stared open-eyed into the darkness, wondering where Jack had gone.


End file.
